Strange Science
by TaleasOldasTimeandSpace
Summary: After breaking up with her cheating boyfriend Danny, Clara goes to a pub called the Dark Forest where she meets a guitar-playing man called the Doctor. Mystery and mayhem ensue. Basically Strange Magic as an episode of Doctor Who.
1. Can't Help Myself

' _Sugar pie, honey bunch…'_

The girl looked like a fairy as she danced aimlessly down the lane, flitting through shadows and moonlight. A fairy, or a ghost.

' _You know that I love you…'_

Her hair was matted and tangled with leaves and twigs, and her bare feet were black with mud. Her arms and legs were covered in scratches, but she didn't seem to notice or care as she sang under her breath.

' _I can't help myself…'_

She drifted toward a row of houses, avoiding the pool of light cast by the streetlamp without conscious thought.

' _I need you…'_

She paused, attention caught by an argument at one of the houses.

'Jack, _go away!_ You're freaking me out!'

'Lauren, please! _I need you!'_

The girl's lips stretched into a smile. In the moonlight, her eyes seemed to glow with a pale rose light. The colour should have been warm and friendly. It wasn't.

'You need to home and sleep it off!'

'Lauren, let me in! I can't live without you!'

'I don't know what you drank, smoked, shot, or snorted, but I'm not letting you in until you're back to normal! _GO HOME!'_

The porch light winked out, leaving the young man in darkness. He sagged against the door and buried his face in his hands, whimpering quietly.

The girl started forward again, focused on the man on the step.

' _Sugar pie, honey bunch…'_

Jack's head came up, meeting the eyes of the ghost fairy.

' _You know that I'll wait for you…'_

He grinned at her, getting to his feet as she glided closer.

' _I can't help myself…'_

He started towards her, his own eyes glowing as he joined her song.

' _I love you, and nobody else…'_

They halted in front of each other, pink sparkles running down their cheeks like tears. Without a word their lips met, arms coming up in a tight embrace. The glow strengthened and engulfed both of them, brightening and swelling like a bubble until it burst with an inaudible _pop._

In the empty lane, pink glitter shimmered in the moonlight.

* * *

 **Imagine I Got No Strings from the _Age of_ _Ultron_ trailer, and you'll have a pretty good idea of how Sugar Pie Honey Bunch should sound. _Doctor Who:_ making fluffy innocent things the stuff of nightmares since 1963.**


	2. What Doesn't Kill You

Clara parked her motorcycle, pulled off her helmet, and sighed, contemplating the entrance to Coal Hill School. It was the first day of Autumn term, and already she didn't want to go in. Not because of the kids – they were a good bunch; occasionally cheeky, but on the whole cooperative and eager to learn. No, her reluctance was based solely on the fact that going through those doors meant having to be relatively civil to Danny for the first time since the debacle at the end of term party in July. A month and a half wasn't much time to prepare you for working with your cheating ex after your very public breakup, she reflected darkly. Although it was convenient for getting back into tae kwon do. With any luck, she could use some of those hard-earned skills on Danny. In a deserted ally. With no witnesses. And possibly a dumpster in which to stash the body.

Her phone chimed, distracting her from her rumination on Danny's broken and possibly deceased body. She really needed to get inside and set up her classroom before students started arriving, but decided in favour of delaying the inevitable and checked her messages instead. It was a text from Amy.

Amy: _You. Me. Rory. Coffee. You can tell us how your first day went, and we can help hide the body, if necessary._

Clara: _Will do. Hopefully I can wait til later in the term to take you up on that – I want to lull him into a false sense of security first. It's easier to strike if they don't see you coming. You can work on our alibis in the meantime._

Clara smiled for the first time that morning and put away her phone, finally getting off her bike and heading into the school. Trust Amy to give her the perspective she needed to face the day. During the immediate fallout of the Incident, or 'That Fateful Day,' as Rory called it (Amy described it in more…colourful terms), Clara spent a solid week on Amy's couch, eating ice cream and binge watching _NCIS_ on Netflix. Gibbs' headslaps and lack of people skills appealed to Clara's mood, and it qualified as research – what to avoid when planning a murder and disposing of the body. After the first week, Amy insisted that Clara shower, change out of her incredibly-ratty-but-extremely-comfortable pajamas, and expose her increasingly vampire-like complexion to the sun. Clara complied, with only a minimum of hissing and bared teeth. When she was again fit to be seen in public, Amy dragged her to the tae kwon do class she had neglected since she first started dating Danny. It was incredibly therapeutic, especially since she pictured Danny's face whenever she needed to punch or kick something. The third week, she did what she wanted to do since she was a little girl and bought a motorcycle.

Growing up it had been a vague picture of her in a leather jacket astride some unspecified, but very cool, bike. She flirted with different makes and models, but nothing ever felt right. Then she fell in love. Not with Danny – that would come later (and oh goodness, if only she knew what was coming, if only she had a time machine that she could use to go back and warn herself, if only...). No, roughly three years ago, she was nearly run over by a man on a Triumph Bonneville Scrambler, and she was smitten. She didn't get a good look at the man, just a brief glimpse of a long purple coat, bowtie, and outrageous chin. The bike burned itself on her brain as she dodged out of its way, and she promised herself that she would one day have one of her very own. The loud, aggressive roar of the Scrambler warned that she was a force to be reckoned with, regardless of her lack of height. Like tae kwon do, the desire to own a bike was not something Danny understood or supported. And because she thought she loved him, and because she thought he loved her, she ignored the niggling doubt in the back of her mind that said she was perfectly capable of defending herself and making her own decisions about transportation and firmly told herself it was sweet that he was so chivalrous and protective.

Chivalrous and protective. _That_ was a laugh.

A knock on the doorway of her classroom drew her attention to the fact that she was staring blankly at her whiteboard. Somehow she had walked from the parking lot to her room without really registering anything. It was probably lucky she hadn't walked into anything or anyone. She pasted a smile on her face – she hoped it was friendly, but suspected it skewed more toward frightening – and turned to the door. Then she wished she _had_ walked into a wall, knocked herself out, and was now lying blissfully unconscious in a hospital room across town.

'Hello, buttercup! Looks like we're going to be neighbours this term. Isn't that great? Now we can make up for all the time we've missed together over the break!' Danny leaned in her doorway and grinned that stupid, insincere grin at her, the one that use to make her tingle to her toes. Now it just made her want to hit something. Preferably _him_.

'Danny. I see the swelling's gone down on your eye. Pity. It added so much character to your face, and you need all the character you can get. Want me to refresh it for you?'

'Now, now, buttercup. You know you're glad to see me. Besides, it wouldn't make a good first impression for the new students if they saw the English teacher threatening the maths teacher on the first day. Not to mention the headteacher. You know Mr. Fairfield was concerned about your…outburst at the party. I was able to smooth things over for you, of course, but you wouldn't want him to think you're making a habit of violence.'

Clara clenched her fists, then forced them to relax lest she give into the temptation of flattening him. 'Stay in your classroom and stay away from me, and we won't have to worry about any of my bad habits. I just wish I knew about _yours_ before I wasted all that time dating you.'

'Aw, don't be that way. Listen, let's you and me grab dinner tonight. I can explain everything, and then we can kiss and make up.'

'You think there is any explanation for why you had your tongue down Leticia Thornfield's throat the day after you asked me to marry you that would possibly make me want to "kiss and make up?!"'

'But buttercup, you hadn't said yes yet!'

'I hadn't-?! Stop calling me buttercup!'

* * *

'He actually said that? He actually thought that would make everything okay? I hope you decked him!'

Clara laughed at Amy's reaction, something she hadn't been able to do at the time. There was nothing like an angry ginger Scot to provide moral support when it came to ex bashing. Although she did tend to reinforce Clara's own aggressive impulses, so maybe that wasn't such a good thing. It was soothing, though.

'No, I didn't deck him. The kids started coming in then, so he managed to escape with his vision intact. And I was able to leave before he could corner me again, so I didn't have to put up with him inviting me to dinner again. I can't believe he thinks I would want to have anything to do with him after everything!'

'I believe I told you he was slow to grasp new concepts, but you were all "noo, he's sweet, he's shy, those rumours about him being a ladykiller are just weird wishful thinking on the staff's part!"'

'Yes, I know – I'm an idiot. I think that's been clearly established, in light of recent events.'

'Aw, sweetie, I didn't mean to make you feel worse. You made a mistake, but you're well out of it now. Rory! Get Clara more coffee! She needs the artificial well-being of a caffeine rush!'

Rory, who had been lost in admiring Amy's display of temper, started and nearly fell out of his chair before dutifully gathering up the cups and going off in search of refills. Clara watched him go, then smirked at Amy and shook her head. 'You are so mean to him. One of these days he's going to stop putting up with your rubbish.'

Amy waved a hand. 'Eh, he loves it.'

Clara reflected that this was probably true. She was pretty sure that Amy was the only one who didn't realize that Rory had been in love with his best friend since the day they met. But Amy had a weird obsession/crush on a guy she met once when she was seven and was completely oblivious to Rory's potential as a love interest. Clara privately thought that the guy would be way too old for Amy now, but Amy insisted he was some kind of alien with a big blue box and ratty clothes. Not to mention really strange tastes in food. There had never been anything wrong with Amelia Pond's imagination.

'Guys, look at this!'

Clara and Amy looked up as Rory came back to the table, juggling coffee cups and waving a flyer.

'Oy, Stupid Face! Calm down before you get hurt. Because if you spill my coffee, I will hurt you.'

'Oh, right! Sorry!' Rory deposited the cups on the table, making sure Amy got hers first before resuming his seat and spreading the leaflet on the table. Clara snickered as she grabbed her mug, leaning forward to take a look.

'The Dark Forest?' she read. 'Isn't that the old pub close to my school?'

'Yeah, didn't they get new management a couple of years back?' Amy asked as she took a sip, nodding approvingly at Rory's refill efforts.

'Yes, yes. There was something creepy about it before, but I've heard good things about it since the change. But that's not important. Look!' Rory jabbed a finger at the flyer. 'Live karaoke!'

Amy raised an eyebrow. 'Isn't _all_ karaoke live? Have you ever heard of dead karaoke?'

'Or _undead_ karaoke,' Clara offered helpfully.

For once, Rory was unfazed by their sarcasm. 'No, see, I've heard about this. They just hired this bloke who plays guitar while you sing. Apparently he's really good, and he plays classic rock between numbers. The only catch is that he picks the songs, not the singers.'

Clara frowned. 'But what if he picks something they don't know?'

'That's just it, he always plays something they can sing, no matter who the singer is. So what do you say, ladies? Should we have a look?'

Clara looked at Amy and shrugged. 'Might be fun.'

'Are you kidding? We haven't done karaoke since Pink crashed our party!'

Clara winced at the memory. She had made the mistake of including Danny in their karaoke tradition. Clara and Danny had sung a duet version of Fools Rush In, or at least, Danny had sung, while Clara tried not to laugh at his horrible Elvis accent. The three of them had gone again to celebrate Clara's new motorcycle, and Danny had shocked them all by showing up and singing an incredibly embarrassing rendition of C'mon Marianne, looking right at Clara the entire time. Apparently, the accent wasn't something he was playing up for laughs, either. Clara responded with Stronger, and emptied his beer over his head on the way back to Amy and Rory. They hadn't been back. It had been rather fun at the time, though, and she had to admit that she missed it.

'Would we actually sing anything, or would we just laugh at anyone who does?'

'We could sing Three Little Birds,' Rory offered with a hopeful look at Amy.

'Ugh, we sing that every time. My voice isn't cut out for those high harmonies. It isn't Scottish!'

'I'm pretty sure karaoke in general isn't Scottish, but you do it anyway.'

Amy looked slightly stunned at Rory's comeback, then shot a glare at Clara, who couldn't quite turn her snort into an innocent cough. 'Well, what do you think, Oswald? You wanna give it a go?'

Clara shrugged. 'Why not? It could be fun'.' She drained her cup and set it firmly on the table, briefly tempted to slam it upside down like Marian's shot glasses in _Raiders of the Lost Ark._ 'It could be an adventure.'

* * *

 **Okay, so this is the result of reading obscene amounts of Doctor Who and Strange Magic fiction. The parallels between Clara/Twelve and Marianne/Bog are almost scary (feisty control freaks and grouchy Scottish stick insects, anyone?).**

 **I know Amy is nothing like Dawn, but I felt like the Ponds' relationship is closest to that of Potionless. And Rory needs the love.**

 **Yes, Danny is Roland. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but somebody had to do it, and he was the best candidate. Mr. Pink, the fandom recognizes your sacrifice and is greatful. And know that while very few of us actually like, it's nothing personal. You just get in the way of shipping Whoffaldi.**

 **On to the Dark Forest. Who could this mysterious guitarist possibly be?**


	3. Into the Woods - er, Forest

Although she rode passed it every day on her way to and from school, Clara had never actually been inside the Dark Forest. It intrigued her, but between establishing herself at Coal Hill and the later Danny debacle, she never had the chance to investigate. Regardless of how the night went, she was determined to enjoy herself.

Pulling open the pub's door, she was immediately surrounded by guitar music. _Electric_ guitar music. She paused, taking in the scene while a grin tugged at her lips. This was not what she had expected.

The interior of the Dark Forest was, well, _dark_. It looked like it had been carved from the inside of a giant tree. There were no straight edges anywhere; even the floor and tables were slightly uneven, although that could be a result of age rather than design. Lights glowed in odd, thorny lamps that hung from the ceiling, casting flickering shadows into the nooks and crannies and making it seem like the place was occupied by more than just the people drinking stout at the tables. A large window webbed with cracks was set into the slanted roof, through which the moon was just beginning to shine. The only well-lit part of the room was a small stage in front of a large, throne-like carving in one corner. On the stage was the source of the music.

When Rory said there was live accompaniment, Clara assumed it was some hipster university student with an acoustic guitar, trying to make some money in between classes. Instead, he was a tall man with strangely leafy-looking silver hair. His eyes were hidden behind inky sunglasses. He wore a long, dark coat (with a scarlet lining, no less!) over a black hoodie and white t-shirt, and grey plaid trousers with heavy black boots. Overall, he looked like he'd escaped from some rock band. He sounded like it, too, playing an instrumental version of Deep Purple's Mistreated on a black and white, vintage-looking electric guitar. Clara couldn't imagine what someone like him was doing playing accompaniment for karaoke in a hole in the wall pub. Though in a weird way, they suited one another, the dark, mysterious pub and the strangely colourless guitarist.

'Well, this should be interesting,' she said with a laugh.

There was no possible way he could have heard her, not over the music, and not from across a roomful of people. She hadn't even been that loud. But the minute she spoke, his head came up, and she could have sworn he looked straight at her. Really, between the spotlight on him, the darkness of the rest of the room, and those sunglasses, he shouldn't have been able to see anything at all. But she could feel the intensity of his gaze, and she was pretty sure he wasn't taking advantage of the cover provided by the glasses to blink. She raised an eyebrow and stared back, refusing to be intimidated. He kept playing, never looking away as his fingers moved over the strings.

'Oswald! Oswald, over here!' Amy's voice broke Clara out of what was rapidly turning into a staring contest. She looked away to see Amy and Rory waving at her from the side of the room. As she started threading her way between the tables, she glanced back at the guitarist, but he was no longer looking at her. She shook her head at the stubbornness that led to trying to out-stare a man the very first time she laid eyes on him.

Looking up, she caught Amy smirking at her.

'What?'

'Nothing. I almost hated to interrupt, but you were blocking the door. I think the people behind you were getting a little irritated with your moment.'

'Moment? There was no moment. I was not having a moment. I was just surprised, that's all. I'd expected someone more like, well, Rory. No offence, Rory.'

Rory shrugged. 'I'm used to it. I hang around Amy, remember?'

Amy pinched Clara's cheek. 'Aw, you're cute when you're in denial. Which reminds me – love the new look!'

'Thanks.' Clara tugged self-consciously at her dress as she sat down. It was a little more…striking than her usual style. It was dark purple, with an intricate cut-out pattern at the neckline and shoulders. The length was short – even on her – and underneath she wore dark tights and knee-high boots with a four-inch heel. She wore several large rings, which could double as weapons in a pinch, if she needed to punch someone. Her hair was twisted up in a spiky bun, and her makeup was darker and more dramatic than her every-day look. She felt powerful, and she liked it.

'You're going to have guys falling over themselves trying to dance with you,' Amy predicted.

'I'm not dancing,' Clara stated flatly. Then she thought about it. 'Well, maybe later. I thought we were here for karaoke. Has anyone gone yet?'

Rory shook his head. 'No one's been brave enough, so he's been played almost every classic rock song ever.'

Amy grinned evilly. 'You should go first, Clara. I want to hear what he has you sing.'

'Oh, no. No. There's no way—'

The music stopped, and Clara automatically glanced at the guitarist. Amy took advantage of her brief distraction to pull her out of her chair and shove her towards the stage. 'Good luck!'

'Amy! Ugh, I will get you for this.' Clara marched toward the stage, muttering about interfering Scots who thought they were sooo hilarious.

The opening phrase of Pretty Woman had her snapping up her head to gape at the wannabe rocker, who was watching her approach with a slight smile on his thin lips. She narrowed her eyes. 'Oh, heck no!' Deciding she was perfectly capable of choosing her own song, thank you very much, Clara climbed onto the stage and grabbed the microphone. 'Pay attention,' she told him, before launching into Straight On by Heart.

He joined her halfway through the first verse, starting out with simple chords at first. By the time she got to the chorus, he was throwing in extra licks and complicated riffs. Clara had never sung a duet with a guitar before, but that's what it was rapidly turning into. She grinned at him as she relaxed and started moving to the music, singing more to him than the audience. She hadn't enjoyed herself this much in years, maybe not since her mother died. It wasn't until just before the guitar solo that she remembered it was there, and she briefly wondered if she had subconsciously chosen the song because of it. Then she was too busy being utterly impressed and trying extremely hard not to show it. The man could _play_.

They ended up standing back-to-back, she holding out her final note while he played one last riff and finished with exaggerated vibrato on his final chord. For a long moment, neither of them moved. As Clara tried to catch her breath, she was very conscious of him looming behind her. He was even taller up close. Even with the heels, she only came up to his nose, and she suspected that he was probably at least a foot taller than her.

She slowly became aware of a dull roar, and realized that it was applause. She bobbed an awkward curtsy to their audience before turning to her accomplice. 'Well. That was…something.' She nodded toward the crowd. 'Um. They seemed to like it, anyway.'

He still hadn't spoken. It was starting to get irritating, and she decided to make him say something. Anything.

She shoved her hand under his nose. 'I'm Clara. Clara Oswald.'

'Nice to meet you, Clara. I'm the Doctor.' He played a three-note riff on his guitar before finally taking her hand. With his other hand, he pulled his glasses down slightly, pinning her with intense blue eyes that lurked under aggressive eyebrows. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Clara was distracted by his accent – Scottish, she hadn't expected that, but then, she hadn't expected any of this – and by the way he said her name, and his eyes, and, well, everything, and she almost missed the rest of his statement. 'Doctor? Doctor who?'

Whatever he was waiting for, he seemed satisfied, because he smiled a little and replied, 'Just the Doctor.'

'Is that some kind of stage name?'

He thought about it for a minute. 'Yeah, I guess you could say that.'

Clara realized they were still shaking hands. She quickly pulled away, trying to cover her discomfort by gesturing to his instrument. 'Nice guitar. What is it?'

He played a rhythmic three-note riff for three beats before repeating it a minor third higher on the fourth beat. 'A Yamaha SGV Samurai.'

She had no idea if that was good or not, but she nodded as if she understood. 'Ah. Well, it'll come in handy if you ever find yourself in an axe battle.' She winced at the lame pun. Where had _that_ come from?

He seemed to appreciate it, though. 'I might have to use that in the future. Or the past.'

'As long as you cite me as your source.' Oh great, now she was flirting like an English teacher.

'Footnotes or in-line citation?'

'Okay, this has to be the most awkward conversation ever!' Clara jumped as Amy suddenly leaned over her shoulder.

'Amy! You'll give me a heart attack one of these days, I swear!'

'Someone had to put you two out of my misery. Seriously, if I'd let you keep going, I was going to have to shoot myself. Or Rory.'

'Hey!' Clara hadn't realized that Rory had followed Amy over until his exclamation. In her defense, the poor thing was rather easy to overlook, especially when Amy was around. And she suspected that the Doctor was just going to make it worse.

'Amy, what have I told you about shooting Rory? Don't. He's the only one who would know how to patch himself up. Although…' she quirked an eyebrow at the Doctor. 'maybe you'd be qualified? Seeing as how you're "the Doctor" and all.'

He frowned at her. 'Not that kind of doctor.'

'Doctor? Doctor what?' Amy was looking at him oddly. 'I met a man once who called himself the Doctor. Didn't look anything like you, though.'

He looked uncomfortable. 'Lots of people are doctors. It's a common title. Like John Smith.'

The little stage was quite crowded with the four of them, and maybe that was why Clara could hear the little _ding_ from the Doctor's pocket, even over the murmuring of an increasingly restive audience.

The Doctor pulled a small box covered in flashing lights and what looked like tiny, whirling satellite dishes. He looked at it, and Clara was sure he paled, although he was already so pale it was hard to tell. 'Look, I need to go do a thing, very important. In my, ah, dressing room. Everybody take five!' He left the stage, turning on the karaoke machine as he passed.

Rory scratched his head. 'I didn't know they had dressing rooms here.'

* * *

Outside the Dark Forest, a man paced back and forth, muttering.

'Come on Pink, focus! There's got to be a way to make Clara realize she's being unreasonable.' Danny wasn't used to putting this much effort into a conquest. But then, he'd never tried to make a conquest out of someone like Clara before. Who could have predicted that someone so tiny would be so… _violent_?

The first time he'd seen her, she was facing a roomful of hooligans and looking completely overwhelmed. He'd managed to restore order with a couple of jokes, and she'd been grateful enough to have coffee with him after school. Later, he found out that she was an only child and had a close relationship with her grandmother. Her wealthy, _elderly_ grandmother. That was when he decided that Clara Oswald was worth his time.

He still wasn't quite sure what had gone wrong. Sure, it was unfortunate that she had caught Leticia and him in the supply closet, but really, what did she expect? If she'd wanted exclusivity, she should have just said yes when he asked her to marry him. There was no call for her to turn so vicious.

'Maybe I could flirt with other girls in front of her, make her jealous.'

'I'm no expert - wait actually, I am – and I'm pretty sure flirting's what got you into trouble in the first place.'

With a strangled yelp, Danny whirled around to find a short, blue woman with an unnerving grin standing uncomfortably close behind him.

'Oh man, if only you could see your face! Priceless! I'd show you, but I left my recorder/projector in my other glamour. Oh well, I'll just have to treasure the memory.'

Danny glared at her, attempting to look intimidating and not like someone who could be frightened by blue midgets. 'Who are you?'

'The name's Sugar Plum, darling, but you can call me Plum. Or Sugar. Or Gertrude. No, wait, not Gertrude. Maybe Cordelia? The point is, you need help, and I've got just what you need.'

'Why do you think I need any help from you?'

'You're not the Brain, are you, Pinky? Look, Clara's never going to give you the time of day, not after what you did. She might give you the time of dying, but that's not what you're after. You want the money she's supposed to get from her grandmother, am I right? Well, that's where I come in. I can get her to look at you without wanting to punch you. All you need is this.' She pulled a small bottle from her pocket. It was decorated in vines, and glowed pink in the streetlights.

Danny wasn't impressed. 'What is that?'

'Didn't I mention? I could have sworn I sang a whole song about it. Must have been another story. This, my pretty Pink primrose – ooo, alliteration, I love it - is a love potion. Ta-daaa!'

'Love potions don't exist.' Danny paused. 'Do they?'

'I ought to know, I've been imprisoned repeatedly for making this stuff. They wouldn't be scared of it if wasn't the real deal, Pinkie Pie.'

He still wasn't sure that he believed her, but he could use the help. It wasn't like he was making a lot of headway on his own. 'How does it work?'

'Ah, instructions. My favourite!' She cleared her throat. 'Dust the one you love (well, not love, in your case, 'cause you'd probably dust yourself, and then where would you be? But I digress). Anyway, instructions: dust the one you love, stand in front, be the first one she sees when she opens her eyes. Got it? Maybe you should be writing this down.'

'I got it – dust the first eyes you see, be in the front, and stand on the one you love.'

Plum blinked, the shrugged. 'Eh, close enough. Here you go!' She tossed the bottle to him, laughing as he fumbled with it.

Danny started to put it in his coat pocket but paused, looking at her suspiciously. 'Wait, what do you want in return?'

It shouldn't have been possible, but her grin got even wider. 'Trust me, the joy I'll get from your romance will be payment enough! Now go to her, Pink panther. Go to the one you love!'

He opened the pub doors, glancing back at Plum. She was holding a strange, rabbit-like creature he was sure hadn't been there before, stroking it like the villain in a Bond movie. He suddenly had the feeling that he was about to make a very bad decision, but shook it off. After all, if the potion worked like it was supposed to, all his problems would be solved.

* * *

 **Oh, my, so much going on!**

 **The interior of the Dark Forest is Bog's throne room turned into a pub. Clara's outfit is the one from listen, although I changed the colour and added boots to make it more Marianne. I went with Twelve's 'rebel timelord' look, because how could I not?**

 **I was originally going to have Twelve start Straight On, but I realized there's no way Clara would let him choose her song. The riffs he plays while talking to Clara are from the Doctor Who theme.**

 **I forgot to mention in the last chapter, but Leticia is the name of one of the girls Griselda throws at Bog. Her hobby is killing frogs - seemed appropriate.**

 **I'm getting a distinctly Bill Cipher vibe from Plum, which I was not expecting. Man, she's turning out to be fun. And those cartoon references came out of nowhere. I'm not sure if I can keep them up, but here's hoping.**


	4. Mr Lonely

'I like her. You should ask her to travel with you. She wouldn't put up with any of your "oh, look at me, I'm a timelord, I'm the smartest person in the room, everybody should listen to me even though I don't actually have any idea what I'm talking about and I'm just making it up as I go" rubbish.'

The Doctor leaned against the console, taking off his glasses and rubbing a hand over his face. The TARDIS had taken to projecting an echo of Donna into his mind, and she was just as he remembered – snarky, fearless, incredibly annoying, and absolutely brilliant. Mostly it was like old times, before Davros and the metacrisis and the stolen earth that forced him to erase all their adventures from her memory. It was just the DoctorDonna, traveling the universe, arguing like an old married couple (they _weren't_ married, so _not_ married, and why did people keep assuming they were?).

Lately, though, she had started nagging him to find a new companion. He suspected that she was starting to degrade – an echo can't last forever, after all – and she was worried about him traveling alone. She always worried about him traveling alone. It was so very Donna, which was probably why it warmed his hearts and made him want to crash the TARDIS into a sun at the same time.

She punched him in the arm. _Hard._ 'Oy, Spaceman! You're not listening to me!'

'Nope, sorry. Taking a nap. Is it my turn to talk now? 'Cause we've got more important things to worry about than your attempts to set me up with a new companion every time we land.' He turned around and plugged the amatorium detection and triangulation device into the console.

'You can't avoid the subject by playing with your new toys, Doctor.'

'Still not listening.'

'I just don't want you to die sad and alone.'

He looked at her then. 'Oh Donna, of course I'm going to die sad and alone. Look, say I ask her to travel with me, what then?' Agitated, he started pacing, flapping his hands as he talked. 'It would be great for a while. I'd show her the universe, all of time and space, and we'd have incredible adventures. But I'd lose her eventually, just like I lost Rose and Martha and you. And it will hurt so much I won't be able to breathe, and I'll do what I always do: I'll get in my box and I'll run, in case the pain catches up. And every place I go, it'll be there. I'm so _sick_ of losing people, Donna.'

'You're really scared, aren't you?' Donna was looking at him in astonishment.

He laughed helplessly and flopped onto the edge of the platform, dangling his clasped hands between his knees. 'I'm terrified.'

He didn't quite know what had gotten into him, either. This regeneration was not at all flirtatious (after two regenerations that tended to flirt with everyone, he was due for a break on that score). But if he was honest with himself, something he tried to be since he lied to everyone else, he had done nothing _but_ flirt with Clara Oswald. When he met her eyes across the Dark Forest's main room – the sonic glasses came in handy there, since there was no way he should have been able to see her – it was as if his hearts started beating again for the first time in a thousand years. The way stood up to him, refusing to back down no matter how he tried to mess with her. He suspected she was a bit of a control freak, maybe as a coping mechanism for being so very tiny. Looking at her, with her fire, and her anger, and her kindness, he could tell that if he asked her to travel with him, she would be _amazing_. And he knew instinctively that she would be someone he couldn't bear to lose.

Donna came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. 'It's alright to scared, Doctor,' she said gently. Then she punched his arm. Again. 'But don't you _dare_ use your fear as an excuse to write us all off and act as if we're already ghosts, dumbo!'

He rubbed his arm and glared at her petulantly. He was going to end up with a bruise thanks to her. It was a good thing he didn't go in for short sleeves.

Before he could think of a stinging comeback that would shut her up once and for all, there was a knock on the TARDIS door. For a moment, he and Donna just looked at each other. Donna raised an eyebrow. 'Did you order a pizza?'

He pulled himself to his feet, almost knocking her over as he ran over to the console. The screen showed two short figures outside the TARDIS. The Doctor tried to tell himself he wasn't disappointed that neither of them had brown hair and enormous eyes.

'Who is it?' Donna asked behind him. 'Is it your girlfriend?'

He glared at her. 'I don't have a girlfriend.'

She lifted her hand, and he flinched, but all she did was pat his cheek. 'Keep telling yourself that, spaceman. So who is it?'

'See for yourself,' he said, tilting the screen towards her.

On the screen, their would-be guests fidgeted. One was a plump woman with orange hair. She elbowed her companion, a slight man with glasses that magnified watery green eyes.

' _You_ talk to him.'

'You tell it better.'

'He likes you best.'

'He does?'

The Doctor pulled open the door and stuck his head out, cutting off their argument with a strangled _eep_ from the man.

'Stuff. Thang. You're both my favourite. Now I'm in the middle of trying to save your planet, again, so please tell me what's going on before I regenerate from old age.'

'That could be any minute now, this time around.'

He glowered over his shoulder at Donna. 'Echoes should be seen and not heard.'

She smirked. 'Uh, right. You think about that sentence for a minute, yeah?'

The look on Stuff and Thang's faces reminded him that he was the only one who could actually see her. Oh well, they were already terrified of him. He doubted talking to himself could really make things worse.

The woman, Stuff, cleared her throat, then elbowed Thang again.

'Oh, Right.' He pulled back his shoulders and threw out his chest. 'News from the mushrooms, sir! "The ringing pearl is loaded with dew!"' Leaning toward Stuff, his whispered hoarsely, 'Nailed it!'

Stuff rolled her eyes. 'We don't have mushrooms anymore, Thang.' She shifted her attention back to the Doctor. 'What he meant was, Brutus saw that girl who sang with you, and she's looking for you. In fact…' she pointed down the hall. 'Here she is now!'

The Doctor leaned out farther to look down the hallway. Sure enough, Clara was coming toward him with a determined look on her face. He just barely managed to refrain from uttering the same _eep_ that he had forced from Thang.

'Doctor! There you are. Would you please tell me what's going on? And don't try to say nothing, because I saw that weird cell phone thing you were playing with earlier, and I've heard the rumors about the missing people, and-' She finally seemed to register the scene in front of her. 'Why is there a phone box in the back hall of a pub?'

Thang was all too eager to be helpful. 'Actually, it's a combination spaceship/time machine the Doctor uses to -Ow!' His exposition was cut off by Stuff stomping on his foot.

'Shut up, Thang!' she hissed. 'If the Doctor wanted everyone to know he was a time-traveling alien, he'd tell them himself!'

For a long moment, there was utter silence.

'Time-traveling alien, huh? I guess that could explain why you look like you escaped from the eighties. You were probably there just last week, right?'

'Well, actually, it was the late sixties. I was showing Jimi Hendrix a couple of things, but he couldn't quite get the hang of it.'

'The way _I_ remember it,' threw in Donna, 'he spent three hours trying to teach you one lick, and you _still_ can't play it right.'

'No, it was-'

'Three. Hours.'

'Have you got someone else in there with you?' Clara asked. Then an expression of unholy delight spread over her face. 'Oh my goodness, is that your snog box? That's what it really is, isn't it? You take it around local pubs and say, "hey, I'm the Doctor, you wanna jump in my snog box?"'

'It's, wait, what? No! It's not a snog box!'

'It is so a snog box!' Donna yelled.

'Okay, seriously, who have you got in there?' Clara pushed past Stuff, Thang, and the Doctor and stuck her head inside the TARDIS. She froze. Slowly, ever so slowly, she drew back and stared at the Doctor. He could feel one of his wide, toothy grins spreading across his face, the kind that had been known to frighten small children. And Thang. In spite of everything, he still loved this part.

'It's…it's…' She stuck her head inside again. 'No! It can't be!' She backed out again, making a complete circle around the TARDIS. Looking inside one more time, she said, 'It's smaller on the outside!'

The Doctor blinked. 'Okay, that's a first.'

'But, but, how does it work?'

'Oh please, don't ask him that, sunshine. He will tell you. At length. And he'll probably use that weird illustration with the cubes that doesn't really make sense and just confuses the issue.'

The Doctor opened his mouth to make a scathing remark, but was interrupted when Clara said, 'Oh, sorry. I'm Clara Oswald. And you are?' To _Donna._

He shut his mouth with a click.

Donna was just as flabbergasted. 'Wait, you can see me?'

'Well, yeah. Why, am I not supposed to?'

'People don't, generally speaking.'

'What, are you his imaginary friend? Or a ghost? You're not his wife, are you?'

'We are _so_ not married. I'm Donna Noble, and your first couple of guesses were closer to the mark. I use to travel with him.'

'But you don't anymore? What happened?'

'He had to erase my memory of our travels so that my head wouldn't explode and destroy the planet.'

Clara was visibly taken aback. 'I'm so sorry. But then…'

'Why am I here now?'

She nodded.

'That's the thing: I'm not. Not really. I'm just an echo, saved on the TARDIS' memory banks and projected into the Doctor's mind so that he doesn't do something even more stupid than usual out of boredom and loneliness. Besides, he needs someone to talk to, otherwise he'll just talk to himself, and that's supposed to be a sign of insanity.' She paused and looked at him contemplatively. 'Although, I think it's a little late for that. Say, what's your opinion on interstellar and temporal travel?'

'Donna, no!'

'What? I'm just making conversation.'

'Not the conversation we should be focusing on.'

'You ended that sentence with a preposition.' He narrowed his eyes at Clara, who shrugged. 'English teacher.'

'Speaking of changing the subject, your doohickey just went "ding."'

'How many times do I have to tell you, Donna, it's not a "doohickey,"' the Doctor groused as he hurried back to the console. 'It's an amatorium detection and triangulation device.'

''Cause _that's_ not a mouthful.'

'It's scientific.'

'Amatorium? You've got a… _love potion_ detector?'

He hadn't realized Clara followed him until she spoke. He huffed. 'Not love potion. It's a mind-altering chemical substance.'

'Yep, love potion. Just because you slap a Latin label on it doesn't make it scientific. And why are you tracking love potion, anyway?'

'Not- oh, forget it. It's not the substance, although it is incredibly dangerous and needs to be contained. It's a trail leading to something much worse, something I've been hunting for a very long time.'

'What are you hunting?' Absently, he registered Clara picking up his glasses and putting them on. 'And how do you _see_ with these things, anyway?'

'Sonic technology. They pretty much do whatever I need. They're quite handy.'

'I liked the screwdriver better, myself.'

'Yes, Donna, as you've told me repeatedly. _Anyway,_ ' he returned his attention to the love pot- _amatorium_ detection and triangulation device, examining the readings as he addressed Clara. Who screamed.

'What? What's wrong?'

She gripped his arm and pointed a shaking finger to the TARDIS doors. He looked, but all he saw was Stuff and Thang. Oh. Right. Stuff and Thang, and she was wearing his glasses.

He took the glasses off and cupped her face. 'Clara, Clara look at me. It's all right, they're not going to hurt you. They're friends of mine. You just saw through their perception filters when you put on the glasses.'

'But, they, they, they're…'

'Not human? Obviously. You humans always think you're the only sentient species in the universes. Now can we get back to what I was talking about?'

She nodded shakily, not taking her eyes off the deceptively normal looking pair. Holding up a finger, she muttered, 'Preposition.' He decided that meant she would adjust.

He cleared his throat. 'The being I've been hunting is one of the most terrifying creatures in all of time and space. A being of immense power and utterly no compassion. Feared by the daleks, the cybermen, and the weeping angels. She has many names, but you would know her as Sugar Plum.'

There was a moment of silence, broken only by Thang's wheezing breath.

'Sugar Plum? As in Fairy? As in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker? As in the dance every little girl who's ever done ballet has dreamed of performing? _That_ Sugar Plum?'

'Have you ever actually listened to the music for that dance, without being distracted by the twirling pudding brain? Tchaikovsky didn't write that about a pretty fairy princess flitting across the stage. He wrote it about a malevolent demon chasing her victims.

'In the original Nutcracker, the Sugar Plum Fairy was far worse than the Mouse King. She kills Clara and the Nutcracker and all the inhabitants of the Land of Sweets. Not a happy ending, and not something you want to take your child to at Christmastime. Tchaikovsky'd been terrorized by Plum for years, and he wanted the ballet to be a warning. I explained to him that his original version would never be a success, and millions of talented ballet dancers would all grow up to be accountants and PE teachers and rock musicians, all because they never danced in the Nutcracker every Christmas.' He shuddered. 'Obviously, he followed my advice, but he wasn't happy about it, and he made me dance it on opening night as punishment. Tutus are not comfortable.'

He frowned at his audience. 'What? Why are you all looking at me like that?'

'Y'know, it's frightening, but I can almost picture that.' Clara shuddered. 'Gah. Do those glasses of yours have some kind of mind-bleaching setting?'

'I'll have you know I was brilliant.'

Donna pinched his cheek. 'You keep telling yourself that, Doctor.'

'So the Sugar Plum Fairy's an alien. And you're an alien.' Clara looked at Stuff and Thang. 'Are you guys aliens, too?'

'Don't be daft. They're goblins. They were born here. And,' he leaned close to her ear, ' _preposition.'_

Clara swatted his face away, but she was laughing. 'Right, I guess I deserved that.'

Thang leaned over to Stuff. 'Since when does the Doctor flirt?' he asked, with all the subtlety of a foghorn.

Donna nearly fell over, she was laughing so hard. 'Sunshine, you should have been there for the last regeneration!'

The Doctor straightened up and took a long step away from Clara, fiddling with the parking brake and trying desperately not to blush.

'Regeneration? What's that?' He couldn't bring himself to look at her directly, but he could see the blush on her cheeks out of the corner of his eye as Clara tried to change the subject. He was more than happy to help.

'Alien thing. My people don't die, we regenerate. New face, new everything, same memories.'

'That's…good?'

'It's better than dying, generally. It's a bit of a mixed bag, though. You never know what you'll get. One time it was it was big ears. Last time it was an enormous chin. This time it's the eyebrows, I think.'

'He's convinced they're going to secede from the rest of his face and set up their own independent state of eyebrows.'

Clara nodded seriously at Donna. 'I can see that.'

The Doctor grunted, but before he could respond, the amatorium detection and triangulation device (that really was a mouthful, maybe he should just call it the ADTD? No, that sound like something out of Star Wars. Or the name a heavy metal band.) began beeping incessantly, lights flashing and sensor dishes whirling.

'Is it supposed to do that?' Clara asked.

'It means that mind-altering chemicals are in the immediate vicinity!'

'Doctor, we're in a pub. Mind-altering chemicals are the whole point.'

He pointed at her. 'Right, no more talking to Donna for you. She's obviously a bad influence. And I still need to figure out _why_ you can see her. But later. This is telling me the substance I've been tracking is practically right outside the TARDIS!'

'There's love potion in the hallway?'

'IT'S NOT LOVE POTION!'

The Doctor ran for the doors, followed closely by Clara, Donna, Stuff, and Thang. He paused in the hallway to get the proper heading, and was practically flattened against the opposite wall when Clara, Donna, Stuff, and Thang crashed into him one after another. Clara's arms came around his middle as she tried to stop herself, and he felt himself stiffen automatically while his arms rose as if trying to keep them out of water.

'Uh, Clara? I'm not really a hugging person.'

Her reply was muffled in the back of his coat.

'What?'

She pulled back and smacked the back of his head before attempted to extricate herself from him and the human/goblin/human echo pile-up behind him. 'I _said,_ "who's hugging?" I'm just trying to keep from getting squashed to death.' She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like _conceited stick-insect._

'Right, so where's this love potion?'

The Doctor started to rake his fingers through his hair, but forgot the detector in his hand an almost knocked himself out instead. As he rubbed his head, three figures rounded the corner, two of them arguing loudly, while the third fluttered helplessly behind them. The detector started to screech.

'Best guess? There.'

Clara paled. ' _Danny?_ '

The man looked up at her voice, then smirked at his ginger opponent (Amy, if he remembered correctly). 'I thought you said she'd gone home. I _knew_ I saw her bike outside.' He shoved Amy aside and reached into his jacket as he moved toward Clara. 'Sweetheart! I've been looking all over for you!' He pulled out an odd, glowing pink bottle.

The Doctor was never quite sure what exactly went wrong. He vaguely recalled running forward, yelling at him to keep the bottle shut. Amy, apparently trying to be helpful, grabbed at the bottle. Danny tried to shove her away. The stopper came out and a sparkling pink mist doused Amy as she reeled backwards, crashing into the Doctor and sending them both to the floor. He thought Clara knocked Danny out, but he couldn't be sure, because at that moment, Amy opened her eyes and stared at him through a joyful pink haze.

'Uh, I'm the Doctor. We met earlier. Do you think you could get off-'

Amy's hand covered his mouth as she took a deep breath. _'Sugar pie, honey bunch!'_ she sang.

'What.'

' _You know that I love you!'_

'Ack, no! Stop that! Let go!' He stood up quickly, dumping her to the floor, where she promptly wrapped herself around his legs, singing the whole time.

Clara and the second man, the one with the big nose, slowly walked over to them, watching in disbelief.

' _Amy?'_ the man – Rory – gasped in horror.

'What _happened_ to her?' Clara asked.

He was aware of a furious whispered conversation of _'you tell him' 'no, YOU tell him'_ taking place behind him, before he felt a tug on his coat.

'Doctor?' said Thang. 'It's definitely a love potion.'

* * *

 **This ended up being quite a bit longer than I originally intended, but the characters kept going on tangents I would have to wrangle them back into their proper path so that they could hit all of my plot points.**

 **Much of the dialog is shamelessly ripped off of Doctor Who, most notably Twelve's Loss speech from the Girl Who Died. (It's so hearts-breaking. I tell you, when Clara leaves, I'm going to be an ugly, sobbing, quivering mess whimpering in the corner.) The bit about Jimi Hendrix was inspired by a behind-the-scenes video about Twelve's guitar. And of course, Snog Box and it's smaller on the outside are from The Bells of St. John and the Snowmen, respectively. I figure that's pretty much the way Clara would always react to the TARDIS. 'Prepositions' snuck in from Stargate: SG1, and stayed to become flirting. Who doesn't love whoffaldi flirting?**

 **I plugged 'love potion' into an English/Latin translator and it spat out amatorium, so I ran with it. Twelve would never deign to call it a love potion when he can have some long, complicated (and most likely made-up) description that basically means the same thing.**

 **Under their perception filters, Stuff and Thang look like Stuff and Thang. Personally, I find it hilarious. What's that? It's creepy when I cackle hysterically all by myself? Well, Donna appreciates my humour. And speaking of which:**

 **Donna's here! I miss Donna so much. Sorry if she wasn't quite what you were expecting, but this is what came to mind when casting Griselda. I briefly thought about echo!River, which could have been interesting, but let's be honest, Donna is soooo much better than River. Plus, she's the one who kept telling him not to travel alone, which is a nice parallel to Griselda trying to set Bog up all the time.**

 **For all of you who hate the sunglasses: I was originally going to have a screwdriver with and amber light (a la Bog's staff) and the glasses were just going to be glasses. But then I was trying to figure out how Twelve picked the songs (which I still haven't explained, sorry) and how Clara would see through the perception filter, and I realized that the glasses actually came in quite handy.**

 **Next time: Amy as Dawn!**


	5. Crazy Little Thing

Clara stared at Amy in disbelief. When the Doctor said he was trying to find a mind-altering substance, he wasn't kidding. She'd never seen her dour, sarcastic friend so… _bubbly._ The way she was trying to climb up the Doctor, whose body language was screaming discomfort, would have been hilarious if it weren't so very wrong.

On the floor behind her, Danny was holding his face and moaning. 'By dose! You boke by dose! Wha's _wong_ wid' you?'

She whirled on him, yelling at the top of her lungs and emphasizing her words with a boot to his ribs. 'What's wrong with _me?'_ – kick - 'What's wrong with _you?!'_ \- kick – 'You were going to use some kind of,' – kick – 'of,' – kick – ' _love potion_ on me?' She leaned down and pulled him up by his jacket, slamming him into the wall and glaring at him while he cowered behind his hands. 'Where did you get it? Who gave it to you? _Where is the antidote?'_

'Stob, stob! I'll dell you, you don' hav' do kill be! I god id fom da blue bidged wi' da wide wabbid. She called he'slef Suga' Plub. I don' _doe_ if deh's a' anadode!'

Clara dropped him in disgust.

'What's a "bidged?"' asked Thang, who obviously didn't speak broken nose.

'What's a "wide wabbid?"' asked Stuff, apparently in the same boat.

'You saw Sugar Plum?' The Doctor tried to come closer, but was pulled back by Amy. 'Let _go_ of me! Have you gone completely bananas?'

Amy stopped singing and looked up at him. 'D-don't you like me, Doctor?'

'Not when you're clinging to me like a Boggin death vine and screeching like a mad dalek!'

Clara could see Amy's eyes widen ominously and the horrified realization on the Doctor's face, right before she started crying.

'Oh no, no crying! Stop crying!' He looked around desperately. 'Clara! She's your friend, make her stop crying. And while you're at it, GET HER OFF ME!'

Clara stepped forward and put an arm around Amy's waist – she was too short to reach her shoulders – pulling her away as she glared at the Doctor. '"Boggin death vine?" Really? Maybe you should try _apologizing_ to her instead of acting like an utter twat!'

Clara could tell he was offended, but she didn't much care. He sucked in an outraged breath, but she slapped her hand over his mouth. 'No. You do not get to speak unless it's to apologize.' He glared at her, but she noted that he had gone completely still the moment she touched him. She tried not to think about that, or the fact that she was still touching his mouth. If she started blushing, it would completely ruin her attempt to intimidate him. Instead, she raised an eyebrow. 'Well? All you have to do is say, "Amy, I'm sorry, and I do like you."' When he didn't say anything, she realized she _still_ hadn't moved her hand. She snatched away and concentrated on not looking flustered.

The Doctor sighed. In a very unconvincing voice, he said, 'Amy, I'm sorry.'

Clara made a _yes, and?_ gesture. He rolled his eyes, but said, 'And I do like you-' She thought he muttered under his breath something like _when you're on the opposite side of the room and in your right mind,_ but it was lost under Amy's squeal of delight as she flung herself at him again, tears forgotten.

'No, no, no, not the hugging, I'm against the hugging!'

'Ooh, I like you too, Doctor! You're so cute when you're grouchy!'

'I'm not cute!'

She flicked his nose. 'Aw, your voice is going all wobbly.'

'Clara, make her stop!'

My wibbly-wobbly grouchy-wouchy boggy-woggy Doctor!'

'Those aren't even real words. Who talks like that?'

'As I recall, you said something awfully similar a couple of regenerations back.' Donna leaned against the Doctor's snog box, enjoying his discomfort.

'You hadn't started traveling with me then, how would you know?' the Doctor groused, still trying to extricate himself from Amy.

'I have access to the TARDIS' records, remember? Probably not something you wanted preserved for all of time, eh?'

'I needed to get the TARDIS back. Besides, I was just reading a transcript.'

'Wibbly-wobbly. Timey-wimey. Seriously, spaceman?'

Clara cleared her throat. 'Look, as fascinating as this is, d'you think we could postpone discussing the Doctor's weird vocabulary until _after_ we get Amy back to normal?'

'You're right, you're absolutely right.' The Doctor put his hands on Amy's shoulders and firmly pushed her towards Rory. 'You! With the nose!'

'Um, my name's Rory?'

'Is that a statement or a question? If you don't know your own name, how do you expect _me_ to remember it?'

'Uh…'

'Rhetorical question. Here, take your girlfriend and get her into the TARDIS.'

Rory blushed as he moved to take her arm, but Amy shook him off. 'No, I don't want to, I want to stay with you.' She tugged on the Doctor's coat. 'You're so raggedy and grumpy. You remind me of my raggedy man.'

He groaned, but caught Clara's eye and promptly changed whatever he was going to say. He leaned down and looked at Amy with a smile. Well more of a pained grimace, really, and completely insincere, but at least he was making an effort. 'Listen, the nice man with the big nose will take you to my ship, and you can have a wee nap. You must be exhausted from all that singing.'

'I could sing forever!' But either the events of the night had finally caught up with her, or the Doctor had impressive powers of suggestion, because Amy yawned widely and let Rory put his arm around her shoulders.

He started to lead her away, but stopped abruptly. 'What's the TARDIS, exactly?'

Clara pointed. 'Don't worry, it's bigger on the inside.'

The Doctor frowned at her. 'It's no fun if you warn them.'

Rory glanced back and forth between them with a baffled look on his face, but helped Amy into the phone box. There was a loud exclamation and a crash. 'What?! How?!'

'Somehow I don't think I ruined it for them, Doctor.'

He drew himself up and clapped his hands together. 'Right, that's taken care of for the moment. Stuff! Thang!' The two disguised goblins snapped to attention. 'Take what's-his-name there,' he gestured to Danny, who was crumpled in a pathetic heap where Clara had left him, 'and stick him in a closet somewhere. Get Brutus to keep an eye on him so he doesn't try to wander off.'

They saluted and dragged Danny off into the shadows. It would have been menacing, except she didn't much care what happened to Danny, and they were arguing about _bidgeds_ and _wabbids_ the whole way.

Clara went to stand next to Donna. 'So what about us?'

'Right, we've got to find Sugar Plum.'

'But how do we do that? Danny was the one with the love potion, not her. How can you track her now?'

'She's close. She likes the havoc it wreaks, and she can't enjoy it from a distance.' She noted with amusement that he no longer bothered correcting her when she called it love potion. Obviously, he recognized a losing battle when he saw one.

Donna raised her hand. 'That's very good, let's catch Sugar Plum and turn her into plum pudding. But maybe we should get the potion away from the white rabbit first?'

Clara and the Doctor looked where she was pointing. A small white creature, which did indeed look like a cross between a rat and a rabbit, held up the pink bottle. With a toothy grin and a cheeky salute, it turned and scampered down the hallway.

The three of them looked at each other for a minute, then the Doctor took off after it. As she and Donna followed, Clara noted that he had the oddest run – more of a high-speed waddle, really – sort of hunched at the knees, but with his torso straight and his arms held away from his body. Maybe he thought it made his gangly frame more aerodynamic, but it just looked ridiculous.

'Get back here, you little monster!'

'Doctor, yelling at it is not going to get it to stop!'

'Clara, quit acting like a teacher and get me a net or something!'

'Where would I get a net?! It's not like I could hide one in this outfit!'

'Good point, thanks for reminding me.' As he ran, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a large butterfly net.

'Wha-how-how did you do that?'

'Timelord pockets, bigger on the inside. Come in handy now and again.'

'You would not believe some the stuff he keeps in them,' Donna added.

'Pretty sure I don't want to know.'

'Probably wise.'

'You know I can hear the pair of you, right?'

'Just use that net of yours!'

He made a swipe at the creature, which dodged. It turned and wrapped the potion in its tail so that it could stick its thumbs in its large ears as it blew a raspberry at them. With a surprisingly graceful summersault, it avoided the net again and ducked into a side room.

'I have you now!'

'You did not just quote Darth Vader!'

'Oh, he loves Star Wars. That's where you got the idea for the screwdriver, isn't it, Doctor?'

'Don't have a screwdriver anymore, and besides, I was using it before those movies came out. They probably stole the idea from _me_.'

They crowded into the room, closing the door before the rabbit-thing could duck past. However, it was no longer trying to escape. Instead, it nestled smugly in the arms of a short, blue woman with an alarming grin.

'Doctor!' she cooed. 'So glad you could join the party! I haven't seen you since that fateful day.'

Clara looked back and forth between them. She knew the Doctor had been hunting Sugar Plum for a while, but she hadn't known they'd actually met. '"Fateful day?"'

'Oooo, is this a new one? I thought you learned your lesson the last time we met.'

'Don't. You. _Dare._ '

The Doctor had gone completely still, and he looked absolutely _murderous_. Whatever history he had with Plum, it couldn't be good.

'Doctor? What happened?' Clara wanted to take his arm, comfort him somehow, but the way he didn't like to be touched gave her pause, and if she was honest, he was starting to scare her.

'It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I _will not_ let it happen again. Not here, not with her.'

'Touched a nerve there, didn't I? But I love stories, and this one's too good not to share. If you won't tell it, I will.' She looked between Clara and Donna and her grin widened until it threatened to split her face in half. 'Settle in girls, it's story time!'

'Plum, no!'

'Don't be a grumpy pants, Doctor.' He moved towards her, but she reached into her jacket, pulled out a taser, and promptly shot him. As he writhed on the floor, she stepped over him and perched on a dusty chair. 'We don't have very long, I'm afraid, so listen up. And don't either of you try anything funny, because I will love dust the pair of you before you can sneeze. I don't know what my potion would do to a psychic projection, but it will work on Short Round here just fine. And besides, a psychic projection can't do anything to hurt me anyway.'

'Why can everybody _see_ me all of the sudden?' asked Donna plaintively.

'What, did you think you were special, just because you hang around the Doctor? Anybody with a basic telepathic sensitivity can see you. I'm guessing you must have one, Tiny Tim, since you're not looking at me like I'm talking to myself. Now stop interrupting, or daddy will wake up before we're through.'

She cleared her throat and began stroking the rodent. 'Once upon a time, the Doctor here had just regenerated. It wasn't this face, might have been the one before. It's hard to keep track. I don't have the spotter's guide.

'Anyway, just regenerated, full of hope and optimism and looking for someone to share his adventures. I'd say he was young and impetuous, but he hasn't been young for a _very_ long time. Always been impetuous, though. He was getting his TARDIS back in working order, and he landed on Tchaikovsky's doorstep.'

Clara shivered, and Plum notice.

'Oh, mentioned Petey, did he?' She smiled reminiscently. 'We had some good times. I hadn't perfected my love potion yet, and was working with fear instead. Not nearly as powerful, but it gets the job done. Ol' Pete and his friends made some of the _best_ faces.

'So there we were. I was having a blast, and then the Doctor showed up. He didn't know what was going on at first, but he made friends with this little ballerina. I think he quite fancied her, probably was going to ask her to be his travel buddy.' She narrowed her eyes at Clara. 'She kinda looked like you, now that I think of it. Weird.

' _But_ , then she had to go and ruin everything by telling him about me. And he's _such_ a downer. No fun at all, just strutting around yelling how the planet's under his protection and he wouldn't allow me to harm them.

'Pfft. As if _he_ had any right to tell me what to do. I'm my own person, y'know? I gotta do it _my_ way.

'So I nightmare-dusted his little girlfriend. It was hilarious, let me tell you. Got to the point where she couldn't even _look_ at him without screaming, and he couldn't do anything about it. She fell of the catwalk of the theatre trying to get away from him, in the end. Pity, too, 'cause that meant that she died before I could harvest.'

Clara felt sick, but she forced herself to ask it anyway. 'What do you mean, "harvest?"'

'Glad you asked! Powerful emotions, like love and hate and fear, create the most delicious energy. Energy that my kind need to survive. Usually we just pick up the ambient traces, and it's enough to get by. But I discovered a way to convert a person to that pure emotion, and lemme tell you, it's sooo much better than getting a little here and there. My potions are quite effective.'

'But that means…Amy-'

'Oh yeah, Imp here mentioned your friend got dusted. You should be grateful it was her instead of you, Thumbelina, because she's not going to be around for much longer.'

Clara started forward, but Plum shook the bottle. 'Ah, ah, ah, my little pony, I can still dust you now. I never say no to second helpings.'

'There's got to be a way to reverse it!'

'Why should there be? And even if there was, why should I tell you? Now if you'll excuse me, I've got the finishing touches of my evil scheme to see to.'

'There's no way you're walking through that door, potion or no.'

'Hobbit honey, who said anything about walking?' She held out her wrist, displaying something that looked like a large watch. 'Vortex manipulator. Cheap and nasty time travel!' she said in a Scottish accent. She cocked her head for a minute. 'Where did that come from? Feels like I saw it on TV or something. Oh well. As a friend of mine likes to say: Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold. Bye!' She slammed her hand down on her wristband and vanished.

On the floor, the Doctor groaned. 'She got away, didn't she.'

'Yes,'

'And she told you about when we first met?'

'Yeah.'

Donna knelt by the Doctor and helped him sit up. 'Why didn't I know about that? I should have known.'

'I erased it from the TARDIS' memory. It was too painful. That's when I realized that it's too dangerous for anyone to travel with me, or even be around me. I just get everyone killed.'

'Doctor…' Clara knelt on his other side, drew back, and slapped him.

' _Ow!_ What was _that_ for?'

'This is not about you, or your stupid survivour's guilt, or your fear. This is about stopping Plum and saving my friend. Now tell me, how are we going to do that?'

* * *

 **Sorry about the length of the notes last chapter. I blame it on a college career that bred a compulsive need to cite everything. I'll try to keep it short this time.**

 **Anything that sounds like it's from an episode of Doctor Who probably is. Ditto for Strange Magic. 'Story time' is from Shrek the Musical (which is so much better than Shrek the movie). Plum's sign off is Bill Cipher's from Gravity Falls. I can see Plum, Missy, and Bill getting together to drink hot orphans' tears and swap notes on terrorizing people.**

 **Danny getting beaten to a pulp and Donna's plum pudding comment were inspired by LisaMarieB on AO3. Hope he's in enough pain for you :)**


	6. Can't Remember Where or When

In the TARDIS, the Doctor concentrated on pulling levers and twirling dials, fiddling with anything he could to avoid Clara's eyes. Somehow she was able to make them inflate to twice their already-large size, making them seem absolutely enormous in her round face. He didn't know how she did it, exactly, but he suspected it was some kind of attack mechanism designed to make him feel horribly guilty.

As if he wasn't already carrying the guilt of several worlds.

He hadn't heard most of what Plum had told them; he'd been too busy thrashing on the floor from the electricity coursing through his body. But he didn't need to hear it to remember everything he had lived through and tried so hard to forget. He really hadn't done a very good job of it, though, because the sound of Plum's voice was enough to bring it all rushing back. Tchaikovsky, the music, the terror…and in the midst of it all, like a ray of hope, the little ballerina, Anastasia. All she'd ever wanted to do was dance, and he could have shown her the dances of a thousand worlds, let her be a part of any ballet in all of time. Instead he'd gotten her killed, that grace and light snuffed out like a candle.

What Plum _hadn't_ told them was that she'd originally intended to dust him, not Anastasia. He'd been just a half a second slow, the way he too often was. Anastasia had seen what was going to happen before he did, throwing herself in front of him and saving his life at the cost of her own. It was something that happened far too much, people dying to save him, under the misguided belief that he was _worth_ saving.

He frowned. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, something about people dying to save him, about another woman, a governess, who'd died to save him, and daleks, and Anastasia – that wasn't her real name, just a stage name, and suddenly it was vitally important that he remember-

'Raggedy boggy Doctor! You're back!'

He groaned and contemplated beating himself to death on the console. He wanted to yell at Amy for distracting him, but knew that Clara would not be pleased with him. Slowly, he turned. 'Oh. You're awake. I thought you'd still-'

'I made something for you!' She thrust a bowl under his nose.

It took him a minute to figure out what it was, mostly because he was sidetracked by wondering how she'd found the kitchen in the first place. Then he realized what was in the bowl. He froze, staring at her. 'It's you…but how?...' He knocked the bowl away and ran deeper into the TARDIS, trying to escape the evidence of another life ruined at his hands.

* * *

Clara knelt beside Amy, who was frantically trying to clean up the mess left by the Doctor. 'What-is that…fish fingers in custard? That's disgusting! No wonder he ran.' The instant she spoke, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Both Amy and the Doctor were taking it far too seriously. Amy's behaviour could be attributed to the effects of the potion, but it had meant something to the Doctor, as well.

'No, no, no _no,_ NO! It's _not_ disgusting, it's his _favourite_ , it's the _only_ thing he likes to eat! Doesn't like apples, doesn't like bacon, doesn't like yoghurt, doesn't like beans, doesn't like toast, only likes fish fingers and custard! Messed up, I messed up, must've messed up…' she started singing Sugar Pie Honey Bunch under her breath as she mopped up the custard. Clara was _really_ starting to hate that song.

She put her hands on Amy's, stilling her hysterical movements. 'Shh, it's okay, it's just a misunderstanding. You didn't do anything wrong.'

Amy looked at her with tears streaming down her face. Clara wasn't sure, but she thought the tears… _sparkled_ somehow.

'But he liked it before! Why doesn't he like it now?'

'Before? What do you mean?' Clara went cold. 'Amy, are you saying you've already met the Doctor?'

'He had a different face, but it's him. He's my raggedy man, and he's left me again, just like he did when I was seven. He promised to come back, but he never did. What's wrong with me, Clara? Why does he keep leaving me?' She started sobbing in earnest, one hand over her mouth and the other holding her middle.

'Oh, sweetie…' Clara put her arms around Amy, rocking her back and forth. She was reminded eerily of all the times Amy had done the same for her in the days following her break-up with Danny. _What's wrong with me, Amy? Why did he leave me?_

'Listen to me, Amy. There is nothing, _nothing_ wrong with you. You are funny and loyal and protective. You've got a mean right hook and legs I would kill for.' Amy gave a watery chuckle at that. 'The Doctor doesn't matter. You've got me, and you've got Rory, and we will always be here for you.'

She looked up to see Rory hovering beside them, looking at Amy with heartbreak and despair in his eyes.

'Let me take her. We found a room with a bed, and she slept for a while, but then she wanted to make something for _him_.' He spat the last like it was a curse. 'I-I think maybe she should lie down again. She seems to be having trouble keeping her energy up.'

She nodded and pulled back from Amy a bit. 'Amy, Rory's going to take you to lie down for a while, okay? We _will_ set this to rights.'

Rory picked Amy up, one arm at her back, the other under her legs, cradling her protectively. Her head lolled on his shoulder while she sang listlessly.

Clara watched them disappear down another corridor ( _not_ the one the Doctor used), then turned to Donna, who was watching with an expression of heartrending empathy. Clara realized it wasn't the first time she had seen something like this happen.

'Where is he, Donna?'

She looked at Clara for a beat, then nodded decisively. 'I've got a pretty good idea.'

* * *

He was huddled in a chair in the library, pretending to read some ridiculously oversized tome when the door opened. He didn't need to look up to know who it was, and he could sense Clara gesturing for Donna to leave them alone before she pulled up a chair next to him. He tried to shrink his lanky body to fit behind the book, but it was far from up to the task.

'So…fish fingers and custard?'

He flinched.

'I knew you were strange, but that's weird, even for you.' She sounded calm, conversational, even, but already he knew her well enough to sense she was seething.

'I didn't know.'

'Didn't know _what_ , Doctor?' Despite her control, there was an edge to her voice.

'I didn't know it was her.'

'Would it have mattered? Apparently you have no problem with breaking your promises and leaving people behind.'

'She was a little girl when I met her! Her name was Amelia, not Amy. And I did go back.'

'Funny, she doesn't remember it that way.'

He gave up hiding behind the book and slammed it closed, dropping it with a thump. He was childishly pleased to see her jump at the noise. He leaned closer to her. 'Why should I explain myself to _you?'_ he asked nastily. 'You're just a pudding-brained teacher from a backwater planet. You have no idea what the universe is like, what it means to be a timelord.'

Instead of backing down, she leaned in as well, her face uncomfortably close. 'And _you_ have no idea what it means to be human. What it means to care about someone other than yourself.'

He recoiled at that, trying to put distance between them. 'I do care. I care so much. Too much.' He sighed and covered his face with his hands, mostly so he wouldn't have to see her eyes.

'I met her when she was seven, and I had just regenerated. She was the first face that face saw. She was spunky, and Scottish, and afraid. Not of me, of something else. I said I would take care of it, but I was having trouble with the TARDIS and needed to get it somewhere safe. I promised I would come back.

'I landed in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1892, and, well, you know the rest.

'I did go back for Amelia after that, but I was late. Twelve years late. I didn't realize it at first, but there was a shed in her back garden that I accidentally destroyed the first time I was there, and when I got back, it was rebuilt. Had been for over a decade. I decided it was better that way, safer for her. Nothing could happen to her if she wasn't traveling with me. I'd just be a bad memory, but she'd be _alive_.' He reflected that he was probably Scottish this time around because of the lingering guilt of leaving her behind. Sort of an apology.

'And now she's dying, and it's my fault. Just like Donna, and Oswin, and Anastasia, and Clara…' He froze. 'That's it! That was her name!'

She frowned at him. 'Whose name? What are you talking about?'

'Anastasia! Her real name was Klara Alkaev. Klara, just like that governess – Clara Oswin Oswald, just like the girl in the dalek – Oswin Oswald. Just like you!'

She eased out of her chair and started backing away from him. 'You're not making any sense.'

He jumped up and grabbed her arms. 'They were all the same woman. They all died saving me. And they were all _you!_ How is that even possible?'

'How should _I_ know?' she shouted, trying to shrug out of his grasp. 'I'm not the time-traveling alien! I've never seen you before in my life!'

'I need to know! You're impossible, and I need to know why.'

'No, what you _need_ is to figure out a way to save Amy before she turns into a cloud of love energy. She's getting worse, Doctor. And you're the only one who can do anything to stop it.'

He let her go and turned away. 'There _isn't_ a way to stop it. It's irreversible. She's going to die. She's already dead. The important thing now is to prevent it from happening to anyone else.'

'SHE IS NOT GOING TO DIE!'

He turned back to ask Clara why her voice went so deep all of a sudden, and was met with a fist to the jaw.

* * *

Rory Williams was _not_ having a good night. It had started out alright. Before Clara arrived, he could almost pretend he and Amy were on a date. It was better when they were alone – not that she ever actually _saw_ him, but at least she didn't treat him like an afterthought. She wasn't cruel when there were other people around – not intentionally, anyway – but he always faded to the background whenever anyone else, anyone at _all_ , was with them.

It was because she was so larger-than-life, and he was so…ordinary. He'd long ago realized that he could never compete with her memory of the raggedy man, a character as extraordinary as herself. Rory was the only person who believed her stories, a fact he knew she took for granted. He was more or less resigned to it all, and just happy to spend whatever time he could with her.

Then Clara showed up, and things began to deteriorate with alarming rapidity. It wasn't Clara's fault, she just happened to involve them all with _him_. The Doctor. He could tell that Amy was intrigued. Not as much as Clara – he hadn't ever seen her that interested in someone, even before Danny. For Amy, though, it less about the Doctor as a person and more as a puzzle teasing at the back of her mind. _That_ all changed when they ran into Danny with his strange pink powder.

He knew he'd missed a lot of the explanation of what on earth was going on, but he was able to work the basics out on his own. The Doctor was some kind of alien, tracking another alien who had some kind of dark plot for the planet. He didn't much care about the rest of the planet; all he cared about was Amy. Whatever that potion was, it stripped her of her dignity, her free will, and her glorious fire. He couldn't stand seeing her like that, not because he was jealous of the Doctor – he'd always known he'd have to watch her fall in love with someone else someday, if she ever got over the raggedy man (although apparently, the Doctor _was_ the raggedy man, however that worked). It was watching her throw herself at him in a way she would never do for anyone if she was in her right mind, her personality completely consumed by the need to please the Doctor.

He made it his responsibility to take care of her, since it was obvious that it was not a high priority for anyone else. Even Clara was torn between finding a solution and satisfying her own curiosity about the Doctor.

When he found her sobbing in Clara's arms in the middle of a puddle of custard and the Doctor nowhere to be seen, he wanted to cry himself. Instead, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the bedroom he'd found earlier. The potion clearly was affecting her in more ways than infatuating her with the first person she saw. She was becoming steadily weaker, and she seemed to be weeping pink glitter.

He sat down on the bed and cradled her. She was singing under her breath, almost as if it was a compulsion.

'It'll be okay, Amy. We'll figure it out, we'll get you back to normal, and you'll be okay.'

He didn't think she heard him, but she stilled. 'There's something wrong with me, isn't there?'

He remembered what she had been saying as she wept in Clara's arms, about there being something wrong with her, and he hated the Doctor. 'There is _nothing_ wrong with you,' he said fiercely, echoing Clara. 'You are perfect. You're my best friend, and I-' _love you_ , he didn't say.

She shook her head and punched him lightly in the arm. 'Not like that, stupid face.' He grinned slightly at the nickname. 'I meant, I can _feel_ that there's something happening to me. Whenever I'm around the Doctor my head gets all fuzzy, and he's all I can think about. But when he's gone, I can think a little clearer, and I'm so _tired._ I feel like my skin's too tight, and that pretty soon I'll explode, and there'll be nothing left. I'm dying, aren't I?'

'You are _not_ going to die. I won't let you. And Clara would never forgive you,' he added with an unconvincing laugh.

He could tell she didn't believe him. _He_ didn't believe him, but he refused to acknowledge his doubt.

'Look, do you want me to check with Clara and the Doctor? I'm sure they're working on an antidote right now, and you'll be good as new in no time. Why don't you try to sleep 'til I get back, yeah?'

She nodded, and he eased her onto the bed so he could stand up. She caught his hand for a minute, squeezing it with her own. 'Thanks, Rory. You're my best friend, too.' She closed her eyes without seeing the hurt on his face, which was just as well.

He paused in the corridor, trying to figure out where to go. 'I suppose it'd be too much to ask for a map with a big arrow saying "you are here, and the Doctor's over there," wouldn't it?' Silence. 'Yeah, that's what I thought. Oh well, how big can the impossible ship inside a phone box really be?'

Perhaps there was some kind of guide, though, because he'd only walked a little ways down the hall he chose at random before he heard yelling. It sounded like Clara and the Doctor. He snorted. No surprise there. All those two had done since they met was flirt and argue, and he was pretty sure even the arguing was flirting. He was also sure that the pair of them refused to acknowledge their fascination with each other. Personally, he suspected the Doctor had engineered much of their current situation just to impress Clara. He certainly didn't care about impressing _Amy._

He opened the door, about to ask if they'd made any progress, and was just in time to hear the Doctor say, 'There _isn't_ a way to stop it. It's irreversible. She's going to die. She's already dead. The important thing now is to prevent it from happening to anyone else.'

'SHE IS NOT GOING TO DIE!'

Rory had never punched someone in his life. Amy always did the fighting for the both of them, and it had never bothered him. But when he heard this sanctimonious, self-righteous, arrogant, alien _freak_ simply write her off as a lost cause, something snapped. He moved across the room in an instant and hit the Doctor right in his cold, heartless face. It was a beautiful punch, too. In the back of his mind, he knew Amy would be proud.

The Doctor was sprawled on the floor, cradling his jaw while Rory screamed at him. 'How _dare_ you! Amy is worth more than twelve of you! She may not matter to you, but she matters to _me_. If you're not going to do anything to save her, then I will!'

The Doctor was sputtering something about doing everything he could, but that it was impossible, and yelling at him for the punch. Clara was trying to pull him away, to soothe him, get him to calm down. He didn't _want_ to calm down. He shrugged off her hands and glared at her. 'I thought you were her friend, Clara. I thought you _cared.'_

He turned and ran back down the corridor, needing to be with her. Needing to see she was still alive, that there was still time.

The noise of the door banging open startled her awake, and she studied him as he tried to catch his breath. 'Rory?'

He shook his head, knowing if he tried to answer her, he'd start screaming again, or crying. Or both.

She seemed to sense what he couldn't say. 'So that's it then.'

'Amy-'

'No, don't. Don't try to reassure me. Just…hold me? Please?' His heart broke a little more, seeing her so uncertain.

He settled back on the bed and wrapped his arms around her. She looked drained, and her skin glittered faintly.

'Rory? Could you sing to me? If it gets too quiet, I start singing. I'm sick of that song, but I can't sing anything else. I can't even remember any other songs.'

He didn't even need to think about it. ' _Don't worry about a thing,'_ he sang quietly. _''Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.'_

Halfway through she joined him, singing the high harmonies like she always did.

Their voices faded away at the end, and they sat in silence for a moment. Amy chuckled. 'Sorry we didn't get to sing it like you wanted to. But I always was rubbish at those harmonies.'

'No, you're not. You're beautiful. I know you hear that all the time, but I want you to hear it from me. You're _beautiful_. You're my best friend, and,' he took a deep breath, 'I love you.'

He was afraid she would hit him, even in her weakened state, but instead she put her hand on his cheek. 'Thank you, Rory. Thank you for always being there, for never leaving me.' She stretched up and kissed him.

He froze for a moment, unable to believe what was happening. But then he tightened his arms around her and kissed her back, pouring out twenty years of frustration and longing and love.

There was a flash, making him open his eyes. They were surrounded with a cloud of pink sparkles that winked out one by one as he watched. Amy was still in his arms, looking whole and healthy, and smiling at him in wonder.

'Rory? I…love you?'

'Me?'

' _You.'_ She laughed and kissed him again.

* * *

 **Ta-daaa! True love's kiss can break any curse! I knew pretty much from the beginning that this was how Amy would be cured, and it's going to drive the Doctor nuts! He'll make some scientific mumbo-jumbo up, but we know the truth – it's the most powerful magic there is. And yes, fish fingers and custard is my version of Dawn's boutonniere. How could it be anything else?**

 **And yay! Rory becomes the Last Centurion! I really like his character, especially when he started standing up to the Doctor. Amy doesn't deserve him. And of course, he has to punch the Doctor – best part of series 5.**

 **I went back and forth about whether or not to incorporate Clara's echoes, since in this universe she didn't jump into the Doctor's timestream. But it's such an integral part of their relationship that I decided she just hasn't done it _yet_. And no, that doesn't mean she's going to do it in this fic. **

**Klara is the Russian version of Clara (gasp! Who knew?), and Alkaev was a the top of the list when I googled Russian surnames. Apparently it means 'to wish/to be wished,' which I thought was an appropriate name for an echo.**

 **I think we're getting close to the end, people. Just hold on a little longer. Almost theeere, almost theeere…**


	7. The Power of Love

'But what did you _do?'_

Amy glared at the Doctor as he scanned her with his sonic glasses. 'For the eleventh time, Rory said he loved me, I kissed him, there was a pink explosion, and suddenly I could think clearly for the first time since we ran into Danny in the hallway. Now quit ogling me with your x-ray specs, creep!'

Clara laughed as he drew himself up in mortified outrage. It was such a relief to see Amy completely unimpressed with the Doctor and back to her snarky self. More than that, she was glad to see that Amy and Rory hadn't stopped holding hands since they came to tell her and the Doctor what had happened. She was quite proud of Rory, for standing up to the Doctor and for summoning the courage to tell Amy how he felt. She didn't think he'd had it in him. Maybe the night wasn't a total loss.

They still needed to take care of Plum, though.

As if reading her mind, Donna remarked, 'I'm really happy for you, send me an invite to the wedding. But I've still got a pudding recipe with Plum's name on it. Or had you forgotten that she's dusted who knows how many other people besides Amy with her potion?'

'Yes, yes, I can track the energy signature from her vortex manipulator. That shouldn't be a problem. But I need to figure out how Amy was cured; otherwise I won't be able to save anyone else. There's got to be a logical, scientific explanation for what happened.'

Clara snorted. 'Doctor, we're in what's essentially a country inside a phone box, parked in the hallway of a pub owned by goblins, trying to defeat a wicked fairy and her love potion. True love's kiss breaking the spell seems as logical an explanation as any to me.'

'"True love" is not something you can put in a pill and give to people to stop them from dying.'

'He does have a point.' Rory turned red when everyone looked at him, absolutely shocked that he would back up the Doctor. 'What I mean is, it worked for Amy, but not everyone out there is going to have someone that they love and loves them back. And I think it would take too long even if they did. We need some kind of one-size-fits-all solution, and we need it fast.'

Amy held up a hand when the Doctor reached for his glasses. 'Oh no, guitar boy. You've scanned me with those things quite enough.' He pouted, but hung the glasses from the collar of his shirt.

Rory was frowning thoughtfully. 'There _are_ some chemical reactions that would take place; the early stages of falling in love with someone would release adrenaline and cortisol, and later dopamine and serotonin. Any one of those could have reversed the effects of the love potion. For that matter…' He started pacing, although he didn't let go of Amy's hand, so he didn't travel very far. 'What we really need to know is what exactly the love potion does. It's all well and good to say that it turns someone into a cloud of "love energy," but what does that mean? What is love energy made of? It's too bad you didn't scan Amy while she was dusted.'

The Doctor was getting excited. ' _I_ didn't, but the TARDIS would have. Donna, can you check the files?'

'Oh, now I'm just your glorified computer, aren't I?' But she was closing her eyes, running through the data. Although Clara wasn't exactly sure why a psychic projection needed to close her eyes to access the memory of a ship of which she was already a part. It probably was a human quirk left by the original Donna.

'Alright, spaceman, here we go. Amy had elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol, like Rory said. Not so much dopamine or serotonin, though.'

The Doctor was starting to grin one of his alarming, toothy grins. 'Now that _is_ interesting, since she had elevated levels of dopamine when I scanned her just now, and almost no cortisol. So "true love's kiss"' he made exaggerated quotation marks with his fingers 'lowered the cortisol and increased the dopamine, which is probably what we need to duplicate. But how to trigger it on a larger scale?'

Clara shrugged, trying to distract herself from his smile. (It should have been terrifying, not attractive. So why was she blushing?) 'Like Rory said, you're not going to be able to have everybody share a magic, spell-breaking kiss, even if there was time.' Absently, she studied the Doctor's guitar, which was leaning against the console. It reminded her of singing with him earlier, which had been one of the best parts of the night. Although the danger and arguing had been fun, too. 'It's too bad this isn't like an old movie, where everything's resolved with a big musical number at the end.'

There was silence for a moment, then the Doctor exclaimed, 'That's it! Clara, you're brilliant!' He rushed over to her, and she thought he was going to hug her. Instead, he stopped short and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. She found herself ridiculously disappointed that he didn't follow through with the hug.

'Um, thanks?'

'Could you maybe tell the rest of us _how_ exactly?' Clara was glad Donna asked, because she didn't want to admit she had no idea what she had said to trigger his epiphany.

He scooped up his guitar and played a power chord. ' _Music_.'

'Nope, still not getting it.'

'I do!' Once again, everyone stared at Rory. He seemed to be getting used to it, though; he didn't even flinch this time. 'Researchers have found that music therapy can both lower cortisol and increase dopamine levels. So you're going to play something to knock out the effects of the potion, right?'

The Doctor pointed at him. 'Gold star, top of the class. How exactly do you know all of this, anyway?'

Rory shrugged modestly. 'I'm a nurse.'

'Wonderful! Excellent! That is a very good thing to be!'

Amy didn't look convinced, but she did look proud of Rory. 'Does it matter what you play?'

'It shouldn't. I'll figure it out when I get there. But I will need to modify a couple of amps to make sure the sound carries throughout the city, just in case.'

'No amp is that powerful!'

He grinned and put his glasses back on. ' _Mine_ are.'

Donna raised her hand. 'Question: Plum is not just going to hang around while you foil her evil scheme.'

He frowned at her. 'That's not a question, that's an observation.'

'Well, what are you going to do about it, spaceman?'

He waved a dismissive hand. 'Oh, that'll be easy.'

Clara raised an eyebrow. If it was so easy, why hadn't he done back in St. Petersburg? 'You don't have a plan, do you?'

He shot her a wounded look. 'I _do_ have a plan. It's a very good plan. It's a _brilliant_ plan. I'm going to trap her in a prison from which she can never escape.'

'And you just happen to have this prison lying around somewhere?'

'As a matter of fact, I do.' He grabbed the butterfly net, which had been leaning by the door since they got back to the TARDIS. Whirling around, he presented it with a flourish. ' _This_ is the prison.'

'A butterfly net.'

'Yes!'

'You're going to catch the wicked fairy with a butterfly net.'

'Yep!'

' _That's_ your genius plan?'

'I told you it was brilliant!'

'Why exactly did you have such a hard time accepting the curse-breaking properties of true love's kiss?'

'Because that's just silly.'

' _You_ want to catch her in a butterfly net.'

He clutched the net protectively. 'I believe we've completely established that, yeah. It's a timelord net, so it's bigger on the inside. Once I catch her, it will seal permanently. It can't be opened, either from inside or out.' He shuddered. 'The timelords made the mistake of having a prison you could open again, and it resulted in daleks swarming all over the skies of London.'

'Okay, fine, you're going to catch the fairy in your magic butterfly net. If that was your plan, why didn't you do that before?'

'She shot me with a taser! Sorry I don't work fast enough for you, but it's kind of hard to catch somebody when you're WRITHING ON THE FLOOR IN AGONY!'

Donna snorted. 'Oh please. You're writhing in agony at least once a week; twice on Wednesdays. Don't be such a drama queen.'

'I'm not a drama queen. I'm a super intelligent alien being!'

'With a magic butterfly net.'

'It's not a magic butterfly net!'

Clara cleared her throat. 'Okay. We've established that you can trap her in the net. How are you going to get close enough? She still has the taser.'

'Well, now that I _know_ about it, I can disable it with my glasses. It shouldn't be a problem.'

Somehow, she doubted it would be that easy.

* * *

She was doing that thing with her eyes again.

He was _trying_ to get the equipment ready and trace Plum's energy signature, but the way Clara was looking at him made it impossible to concentrate. He groaned, pulling off his glasses and dragging his hands over his face. 'Shut up.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'You're yelling at me with your eyes, and I can't think over the racket! Seriously, how do you _do_ that? It's like they inflate!'

'Maybe it's your guilty conscience trying to tell you something.'

He huffed and put his glasses back on, turning his attention back to the amp over which he hunched. 'Don't have a conscience, guilty or otherwise. Pretty sure I deleted it when I regenerated.'

'Yeah, sorry, no. Anyone who spends as much time as you do wallowing in past mistakes has a massively guilty conscience. Not to mention an ego the size of a small country.'

'You know what, just go back to the eyes. They were quieter.'

'I know what you're planning to do, and I won't let you.'

He raised an eyebrow as he looked at her over the glasses. 'You _don't_ want me to stop Plum and save all those people? Maybe _you're_ the one without a conscience.' It was times like these he missed having a screwdriver to point at people for emphasis. Pointing sunglasses just didn't have the same effect.

She rolled her eyes at him. 'I _don't_ want you to stop her alone. That's what you're planning, and I won't let you. I'm coming with you, and we'll stop her together.'

'Oh, no!' He spun toward her, dropping the amp as he did so. 'It's too dangerous!'

'It's too dangerous for you to go alone! You need somebody to watch your back.'

'I have a duty to protect you! I couldn't save Amy, but I can save you!'

She glared at him, pulling his glasses off so she could look him in the eye. 'I do _not_ need you to save me.'

'But you could die.' His hands were starting to flail, so he clasped them together in front of his chest. They started chafing together, and for the life of him, he couldn't get them to stop.

She shrugged, amazingly calm in the face of her own potential death. But then, she always was, wasn't she?

'So could you. But if I'm there, you'll stand a better chance of survival, won't you?'

He grabbed her arms, trying to shake some sense into her. 'I can't let you die saving me! Not again!'

She looked angry, then confused, then her face softened. Instead of trying to shrug him off like she had in the library, she gently rested her hands on his wrists. 'This again? I told you, Doctor, it wasn't me. None of them were.' She gave him a lopsided smile. 'I'm not planning on dying today.'

He shocked them both by moving his hands to cup her face. 'Neither were they, but they still died. I know you're not them, but I think, somehow, they were you.' He leaned closer, trying to make her understand. 'I've lost so many people; I don't want to lose you, too.' That hadn't _quite_ been what he meant to say, and he could feel his cheeks warm.

Her smile widened, and she lifted one of her own hands to touch his cheek. His entire focus narrowed to where her palm rested against his face, and it took everything in him not to lean into her hand. Distantly, he realized she was saying something.

'Then we'll save each other,' she said.

He closed his eyes, knowing there was no way he could talk her out of it. Finally, he sighed and nodded. When he opened his eyes, her smile was blinding. 'You win, boss.' In spite of himself, he started to grin back. 'Let's go catch a wicked fairy!'

* * *

 **I thought that we would defeat Plum in this chapter, but I snuck in some extra whoffaldi fluff instead. Angsty fluff, but fluff all the same. I gotta find solace where I can.**

 **Look, a vaguely scientific explanation! The stuff about chemicals and music therapy is the result of exhaustive research. [Shush, Donna. They don't** _ **need**_ **to know it was ten minutes on Google. Any research is exhausting!]**

 **What, you thought this would end without another musical number?**


	8. Garoooovy

The Doctor flipped a lever on the console, and the TARDIS made a strange wheezing noise. There was a loud thump, and he looked at Clara expectantly.

'That's it?' He'd said they'd be taking the TARDIS to a place where he could broadcast the signal across London, but she didn't realize it would be so…unspectacular. There was a handful of blinking lights, the strange dials above the console had rotated, and there was the noise, but nothing that felt like they'd actually _traveled_.

He didn't answer, just rolled his eyes significantly toward the door.

Shrugging, she walked over and pulled the door open. And stared.

Up to that moment there'd been a nagging doubt in the back of her mind, one she hadn't fully realize existed. A quiet whisper that said the Doctor couldn't possibly be everything he claimed. Granted, the endless rooms and corridors inside a phone box that should be cramped for two people _was_ a bit hard to rationalize, but nevertheless, there had to be some logical explanation that didn't involve alien time travelers.

But she opened the door to see, not the back hallway of the Dark Forest, but the circle of the London Eye, glowing in the night. The spectacle quashed her doubts once and for all. There was no way they could have moved from a pub to the landmark Ferris wheel on the other side of the Thames in the blink of an eye, and certainly not inside a phone box, without the Doctor being _exactly_ who he claimed.

She stepped outside and laughed, twirling to take in the sights. 'This is amazing! You do this all the time?'

He'd followed her out, and was leaning against the TARDIS, watching her with a pleased smile. 'Ah, well, you know.' He shrugged nonchalantly. 'It's easier to find parking when you can just materialize anywhere you want.'

'But don't people notice?'

'Not really. People tend to see what they expect. If there's a phone box on the sidewalk, it's probably because it's supposed to be there.'

'I guess that makes sense. I mean, nobody really thought it was weird that there was a phone box in the Dark Forest. So…why are we here, exactly?'

'I told you, I need to broadcast the signal across London. This is a fairly central location, and I can hook my amps up to the Eye and use it to magnify the transmission.'

'Because they'll just let you walk up to the most famous Ferris wheel in London and plug your equipment into it.'

'They will when I show them this!' He pulled out a small leather case and flipped it open, brandishing it at her with a flourish.

'It's blank.'

'Really?' He looked at it in surprise. 'Well, _I_ know that, but people usually see whatever they need to give me authority. It's psychic paper. It will probably tell them I'm a health and safety inspector or an anti-terrorist government agent or a rock star or something.'

'A safety inspector with a guitar and amps?'

'It's like the TARDIS. They don't question it. Now, we've really got to get a move on. Who knows how long we have left?' He shoved one of the amps into her arms and took off towards the Eye, his guitar slung across his back and carrying the other amp as if it weighed nothing. She glared at him as she staggered in his wake.

They managed to get to the base of the ride before anyone tried to stop them. It helped that it was rather late. The Doctor flashed the psychic paper like he was a member of Scotland Yard. The security guard squinted at it with a frown. 'Termite inspector? At 2.30 in the morning?'

The Doctor glowered at his paper, but went with the story. 'Yes. Termites. Got to make sure the structure is sound. Wouldn't want it to collapse on top of a load of tourists and make tourist jelly out of the lot of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work. You can go back to your office. Termites are rather shy, so just leave my assistant and me to our work. If you're breathing over our shoulders, they'll never come out. Thank you. Ta!'

The guard left, but Clara was sure he would call the police as soon as he'd thought a little more about it. 'Termites? Seriously? Isn't the Eye made of metal?'

'Yes, which is why it will amplify our signal nicely. I got the idea from some old friends of mine – well actually, more like enemies – they used the Eye to transmit a signal across London, which controlled living plastic. Never had much of a sense of humour, the Nestine Consciousness. And don't look at me – I don't have any say in what people see on the psychic paper. Maybe he has a morbid fear of termites. Honestly, Clara. We don't have time for idle chatter. Lives are at stake!'

She contemplated dropping the amp on his foot, but decided it would accomplish nothing but a fleeting (though extremely satisfying) revenge. Instead, she heaved a dramatic sigh and lugged it over to where he was working. Amy and Rory had opted to stay inside the TARDIS, ostensibly to monitor the signal. Personally, Clara believed that neither one of them wanted Amy to be anywhere near Plum. She couldn't blame them, not after everything they'd been through, and especially since there was every chance that Plum would show up as soon as the Doctor's playing started having an effect.

'So how is this supposed to work?'

He hoisted the equipment into place with a grunt. 'I've already prepped the amps. I'm wiring them into the Eye, which will broadcast the signal into all the speakers, headphones, and mobile devices across the city. So anyone infected will be in range of _something_ that will transmit the music and counteract the effects of the potion.'

She clapped and pointed at him in triumph. 'Ha! You called it a potion!'

'Really, Clara?' He pulled down his glasses and rolled his eyes at her. 'We don't have time for this.'

'Hey, you're the only one with sonic specs around here. There's not much more I can do with this one,' she said, kicking the amp she'd dropped – that is, set down with the utmost care – when she realized he was going to be fiddling with the other one for a while.

'Well, give it here; I'm ready for it now.' He waved her over impatiently, but didn't offer to pick up the amp himself.

Grumbling, she heaved it up to where he was waiting and balanced it on her head to hold it in place while he worked.

'Right, that's it. Now it's time to start the music.' He pulled his guitar around to the front and played an experimental chord.

'How will we know if it works?'

'Rory and Amy said there was a pink explosion, so I figure curing all the infected in the city should be visible from here. Plus, I'm pretty sure we'll have a visit from Plum if we're successful. Are you _sure_ you won't wait in the TARDIS?'

'Doctor, we talked about this. I'm staying. Get over it.'

'Well, in that case…' He reached into his coat and pulled out a wireless microphone, tossing it to her. 'Make yourself useful.'

She caught it with a grin. 'Seriously?'

'Might as well. What are we playing, boss?'

She thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. 'I chose last time. You pick.'

'Reeaally?' He gave her the toothy grin she was seriously starting to love and played a familiar intro.

She started bobbing her head to the music, enjoying his playing. At her cue, she lifted the mic and belted out the lyrics. _'Wiiiild thing! You make my heaaart sing!'_

She forgot about their surroundings, about the thousands of people whose lives depended on the success of their efforts, of the threat of Plum's wrath. It was just her and the Doctor making seriously awesome music, just like when they'd met at the beginning of this endless night.

Just when she thought he couldn't surprise her any more, he stunned her by breaking in on the repeat of the verse. It took her a minute to get over her shock. She simply held out the mic for him, marveling at his gravelly voice. He could sing like _that,_ and play the guitar, _and_ travel in time and space? She finally managed shake off her astonishment to join him, harmonizing the end of the verse.

When she sang _'I think I love you,'_ it was all she could do not to blush. She had a sneaking suspicion that it could be more than just a lyric very shortly. If it wasn't already.

They were so focused on each other that they almost missed the explosion. It lit up the sky like pink fireworks, raining down a glittering cloud on them as they finished the song. She grinned and held out a hand, trying to catch the sparkles before they dissipated. 'It's too bad it almost caused the death of who knows how many people tonight. It's kind of pretty.'

'Well dearie, you know what they say about beautiful but deadly.'

'Plum!' the Doctor growled and moved his guitar to his back.

She was standing behind them, her white accomplice perched on her shoulder like a demented, furry parrot, pointing the taser almost casually at the Doctor. She looked like a short, blue pirate – or at least she would, if weren't for the small, flower-and-cherry-decked hat perched on her head. 'What's up, Doc?' She wiggled the fingers of her free hand.

'What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?!'

She tilted it at rakish angle over her eye. 'Don't you like it, Watson? I saw it in this little shop on Oxford Street and I simply _had_ to have it. There wasn't anyone in the shop to help me, of course, but I've always been into self-service anyway. If they didn't want the window broken they shouldn't have locked the door. Anyway, it's just like the one a mutual friend of ours wears. I always did admire her sense of style.'

'Watson? I'm not Watson. If anything, I'm Holmes. And _you_ look like a Mary Poppins knock-off.'

'Doctor? Now is not the time to be taking "what fictional character am I most like?" quizzes with the person trying to kill us and half of London.'

'Your pet human does have a point, Jekyll. Now why did you have to go and spoil my fun?'

He pushed his glasses farther up his nose. 'Killing people is not fun, Plum.'

Clara heard the high-pitched whine of the glasses at work. She started edging away from the Doctor, trying put space between them to give him room for whatever he was planning, as well as give Plum more targets to monitor.

'You would know, wouldn't you, McCoy? How many people have you killed in all your years knocking around the universe?' Plum took a step closer. 'I've heard the stories. Didn't you single-handedly end the time war? How many daleks did you kill that day? Not to mention the timelords. Your own kind, Brown! Slaughtered, like animals! You dare judge me for trying to survive?'

'It's not survival at the expense of innocent lives!'

'You never did have a sense of humour, Frankenstein. Maybe this will give you a giggle!' She fired the taser at him – at least, she tried to fire the taser. Clara realized he'd used the glasses to disable the weapon, and she lunged forward to rip it from Plum's hands. With an angry screech, the rabbit-thing launched itself from Plum's shoulder, trying to get the taser away from Clara. It figured that she would be wrestling an alien rodent while fighting for her life. It had been that kind of night.

'Mallard! Control your gremlin! On second thought, nevermind. I'll do it myself.'

'Plum, no! Clara, look out!'

She pulled the creature away from her head and looked up, just in time to get a face-full of pink glitter.

Clara closed her eyes with a groan and dropped to the ground. _Of_ course _I would get love dusted._

* * *

The Doctor realized what Plum had in mind seconds before she pulled out the pink bottle, but he was too far away to stop her. The best he could do was pull out the net as he ran toward them. Plum was too busy laughing at Clara to notice his approach. She looked up just before he brought the net down over head.

'Curses, Drakken! It's not _nice_ to trap a girl when she's gloating!'

'Shut up, Plum.' He grabbed the albino Kowakian monkey-lizard and stuffed it into the net with Plum, using the glasses to seal them in their prison forever. It hardened into a globe the size of a beach ball. He snapped open the TARDIS doors and drop-kicked it into the console room.

There was a squawk, and Amy yelled, "Doctor! Stop throwing things at Rory!'

'Sorry!' he yelled back, muttering as he turned back to Clara, 'If people wouldn't stand in my line of fire, they wouldn't get hit.'

'Pretty sure he thought he was safe from projectiles, shut in the TARDIS like that and all.' Clara hadn't opened her eyes since Plum had dusted her, which was probably wise, all things considered.

He knelt beside her, scanning her with his glasses.

'I can hear you using your x-ray specs, Doctor.'

'I keep telling you, they're _not_ x-ray specs.' He growled for effect, but smiled at her with all the affection she had inspired in him over the course of the night. Somehow, he didn't mind nearly as much when _she_ teased him about the glasses.

'What's the verdict? Am I going to die? I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you. And no offence, but I _really_ don't want to fall in love with you. Not like this.' Her words were flippant, but there was a tremor in her voice, betraying that she wasn't as offhanded as she tried to appear.

He grabbed one of her hands, and she gripped his fingers tightly. 'You are not going to die, Clara.' He chose to ignore the second half of her statement, though the thought that she might not object to falling in love with him under other circumstances clamored for his attention.

'I don't think a kiss is going to work for me, so play me a song, Doctor. Please? Something pretty.'

'I've got just the thing. But I'll need my hand back.' He tugged on their joined hands, and she released him and crossed her arms.

'I'm waiting, daft old man.'

'None of your cheek. And I don't know why you call me old, when we look exactly the same age!'

She snorted. 'We do _not_ look the same age.'

He couldn't tell if she was offended or not. Shrugging, he started to play. He could see her smile when she recognized the song, and it only got wider when he started to sing. ' _You're waking meadows in my mind, making waves across my tide…'_

She started singing a counter melody, and he reflected again that their voices blended nicely together, just as they had before. He wasn't used to singing with anyone, but he rather liked it.

Towards the end of the song, the Doctor noticed Clara's skin glowing brighter and brighter, until the radiance threatened to blind him. There was a noise almost like a sigh, and the glow faded into a gentle mist of glimmering pink.

When the song ended, he just watched her for a minute. Finally she got impatient, and wrinkled her nose. 'Uh, Doctor? Are you still there? Am I cured, or will I have to invest in blindfolds and a seeing-eye dog?'

He blushed. 'Oh, right. Sorry. That should have done it. My scan shows your cortisol levels are back to normal, so I think you're fine.'

'You think?'

'Know! I know you're fine!'

'You've got a wonderfully comforting bedside manner.' Slowly, she cracked one eye open, then the other. In spite of his assurances, he watched her warily for signs of…bubbliness. It was bad enough when Amy threw herself at him; he didn't think he could bear it if Clara did the same.

'Well?'

She blinked a few times and grinned. 'Well, I don't feel the urge to start singing or wrap myself around your knobby knees, so I think I'm good.'

'I'm glad to hear it. And I don't have knobby knees.'

'Whatever helps you sleep at night, Doctor.'

* * *

The Doctor insisted on taking them all back to the Dark Forest in the TARDIS, and none of them raised any objections, especially since their transportation was still there. As they materialized in the same hallway as before, Clara leaned against the console and eyed the Doctor.

'So, what did you do with Plum? I could hear you catch her, and apparently you threw something at Rory?'

'Yeah, I have the goose egg to prove it.' Rory rubbed his temple and glared at the Doctor.

'It's not like I was _aiming_ for you or anything,' the Doctor retorted defensively. He turned to Clara. 'And yes, I did trap Plum. She's right here.' He held up a glowing blue orb.

'What are you going to do with it? Use it as a nightlight?'

'That was actually my suggestion,' Donna interjected. 'I think it would look nice over the entryway.'

The Doctor scowled at them. 'You're both hilarious. I'm going to give it to Stuff and Thang. They can hang it in the main room on disco nights.'

Clara blinked. 'Disco nights?'

Donna crossed her arms. ' _How_ is that better than a nightlight?'

Clara waved her off. 'Never mind that. The goblins have disco nights? And you're going to give them the prison of a homicidal man-eating alien for a disco ball?'

He put his glasses on and smirked. 'Just call me Doctor Disco.'

'No.'

He pouted and left to find the goblins, muttering about unappreciative pudding brains.

Amy cleared her throat. 'Well, it's been a long night, and I really need to get some sleep. Thanks for helping to save the world, Clara. Rory? Walk me home?'

Rory grabbed her hand and kissed it. 'Of course. 'Night, Clara.' Hand in hand, they left the TARDIS.

The console room seemed terribly empty with just Donna and Clara. She held out her hand to the projection. 'It was nice to meet you, Donna. I can't believe you do this all the time.'

Donna shook her hand, smiling sadly. 'I use to. I really don't, now. Not anymore. Listen, I know I don't have much more time – I was never meant to last this long, and I think all of the extra people with their telepathic abilities took the last of my strength. I'm going to fade soon, and then the Doctor will be alone again. It's not good for him to be alone. So I need you to help him.'

'What can I do about it? I doubt I'll ever see him again.' Her future seemed incredibly dull when she thought about it, so she refused to think about it.

'Just…tell him.'

'Tell him what?'

Donna grinned. ' _Tell him that you're never gonna leave him, tell him that you're always gonna love him…'_

Clara punched her arm lightly. 'Shut up.'

'Just keep it in mind, yeah?'

'I'll try.'

'That's all I can ask. C'mere, gimmie a hug.' They embraced, and Donna gave her a genuine smile. 'It was an honour to meet you, Clara Oswald.'

'It was honour to save the world with you, Donna Noble.'

Clara let herself out of the TARDIS. She could hear the Doctor's raised voice somewhere in the pub, and she briefly considered searching him out. But really, what could she say to him after all they'd been through that night? In the end, she went outside and gunned her bike, riding home to the flat she'd left a lifetime ago.

* * *

 **Don't worry, there's still an epilogue yet. It can't end this way!**

 **Sorry this one's taken so long. It was a hard chapter to write. I don't want it to be over, and it didn't help trying to write it after watching Face the Raven. I needed to take a break and write emergency fluff after that.**

 **Look, we have** _ **two**_ **songs this time around (three, if you count Donna's Tell Him reference). Well, it is the big finale. I know I said the Doctor probably wasn't going to sing, but I changed my mind. I can do that. Besides, we all know he can sing. I went with the movie version on both Wild Thing and Strange Magic. I feel like they fit better, and to be honest, I like them better than the originals. Does that make me a bad person? [I wasn't asking you, Donna.]**

 **Plum's hat and the Doctor's Mary Poppins comment are for LisaMarieB on AO3. You're right, she needed it.**

 **This time around, Plum references a grunch of fictional doctors. Jammy Dodger if you can place them.**

 **I called Imp an albino Kowakian monkey-lizard, which is the same species as Salacious B. Crumb, the creepy little dude that hangs out with Jabba the Hut. If you cross your eyes and squint they kind of look alike (which has been my motto for this entire story) and they're both figments of George Lucas' imagination so it works.**


	9. All We Have to Do is Run

Clara closed the door of her flat and leaned against it, covering her eyes with one hand. It was a good thing it was the weekend, because the idea of facing a roomful of hyperactive students in a few hours was not at all appealing. No, she planned on falling into bed, wrapping herself in a warm cocoon of blankets, and not emerging until afternoon at the earliest. It would be followed by food, a long, hot bath, and more bed. Mindless telly might fit in there somewhere, if she had time.

She sighed and pushed off the door, shuffling to her bedroom, dropping her handbag and pulling off her jacket as she went. She pushed open the door – and bopped her nose. Blinking, she stared at the door. It was really hard to think, but she was pretty sure her bedroom door hadn't opened as far as it was supposed to. She pulled it closed and opened it again. Sure enough, it stopped short after only a foot, as if something was in the way. She poked her head into the gap.

In the middle of her bedroom was parked a large, blue box.

'Why do you have so many mirrors, anyway? Is your face so big that you need three mirrors to see it all?'

'Doctor!' She squeezed through the door and stood behind him where he sat at her vanity. 'What are you doing here?'

He eyed her reflection. 'Waiting for you, obviously. It's about time you got back. What took you so long? I've been incredibly bored. And my face isn't wide enough to merit three mirrors.' He spun around on the vanity stool to face her, hands clasped between his knees.

'You left,' he stated flatly.

'I did, yeah.'

'Why?'

She shrugged. 'We saved London, captured the bad guy – well, girl – and had happy endings all around.' She frowned. 'Except for maybe Danny. Is he still locked in the closet?' She probably should have been more concerned for his well-being, but he was, well, _Danny._ He didn't exactly inspire _that_ kind of concern.

'Ach, he'll be fine. A few of the goblins turned off their perception filters, and he scurried home raving about monsters and rabbits and smurfs. What's a smurf?'

'It's a-'

He waved a hand. 'Never mind. I'd just delete it anyway. You haven't answered my question.'

'We'd won. There was nothing more I could do. I was exhausted – still am, by the way,' though this wasn't entirely true anymore, not since she'd caught sight of the TARDIS in her bedroom, 'and you…you didn't need me anymore.' She turned and flopped face-down on her bed, not wanting to meet his eye.

'You didn't say goodbye.'

She snorted into her pillow. 'You didn't strike me as the type to _like_ goodbyes.'

'That _is_ generally the case. But…' she heard a rustle. 'We don't _have_ to say goodbye.'

She cracked an eye open and found him hovering at the foot of her bed, hands fidgeting in front of his chest and elbows sticking out like scrawny chicken wings, looking at her with a hopeful expression.

'Uh?' she said intelligently.

'You could travel. With me. If you want.'

She pulled herself up so she could see him properly, determined to make a coherent contribution to the conversation. 'Uh?'

He motioned toward the TARDIS. 'All of time and space, sitting in that big blue box.'

'I thought you didn't want to travel with anyone.'

'I didn't.'

'What changed your mind?'

His eyebrows twitched. 'You did.'

She narrowed her eyes at him. 'Donna's gone, isn't she?'

He looked like a bewildered owl. 'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'I'm not going to be her replacement.'

'I'm not asking you to.'

' _And_ I'm not going to be a fill-in for all of the Clara-clones you've met before.'

He huffed. 'I'm not asking for that, either. Though I am curious,' he added reflectively. 'Aren't you?'

She refused to admit that she was. Very curious, in fact. And she all of time and space more than anything in, well, all of time and space.

He fluffed his hair with both hands. 'Look, I was going to ask you back at the Dark Forest, but Stuff and Thang were nervous and wouldn't stop talking. By the time I'd got them calmed down, you were already gone.'

That reminded her of something that had been bothering her all night. 'How did you meet them, anyway?'

'Oh, we go way back. A couple or fifty years ago or something, I help repair their perception filters. They were malfunctioning, and you pudding-brains aren't ready to co-exist peacefully with goblins, yet.' He frowned reproachfully. 'You people can be ridiculously jumpy, sometimes.'

'Not exactly making me want to travel with you, Doctor.'

'Really, Clara. You enjoyed yourself tonight. Don't tell me you didn't.'

She opened her mouth to tell him she didn't, just on principal, but closed it again. He was right, curse him.

He seemed to sense he was winning. 'You're an English teacher. Haven't you ever wanted to meet Jane Austen?'

'How did you-'

'You have two complete sets of her work, plus three individual copies of Pride and Prejudice.'

She grinned in spite of herself. She _had_ always wanted to meet Jane Austen. 'Would there be planets, too?'

'Any planet you want. There's even a train through space, though I wouldn't recommend the interstellar cruise line.'

'And is it always like this?'

'Would it make it better or worse if I said usually?'

Her grin broadened into a smile. 'Better, definitely.'

He raised his eyebrows and held out a hand in a _well, then?_ gesture. She slapped her hand into his, and he pulled her off the bed and toward the TARDIS, snapping the fingers of his free hand. The door swung open, and she blinked. 'So _that's_ how you hit Rory.'

He tugged her inside. 'It comes in handy now and again.' He didn't stop until they reached the consol. 'So, where do you want to go?'

Her mind boggled at the possibilities. 'Surprise me.'

'You're the boss!' He flipped a lever, and the wheezing noise started.

She laughed, watching the dials above the console spin, 'I could really get to love that sound.' She looked down to find him studying her, and he grinned when their eyes met.

'I know just what you mean.'

 **So there you have it. Thank you to everyone who came on this journey with me, and to everyone who left comments and kudos. It's really encouraging for a first-time writer. [And to the mob with the torches and pitchforks: you've got the wrong creepy castle. You want the one on the** _ **other**_ **deserted hill. Move along, nothing to see here.]**

 **I don't have plans to continue this universe, although Jane Austen elbowing her way into the epilogue gives me an idea…I could see Whoffaldi as inspiration for Lizzy and Darcy…**

 **To all the Strangers and Whovians and the random tourists who made the wrong turn back by Sherlock and came along for the ride,**

 **Namarie.**


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